Nvidia’s ‘Infinite Race’ for AI Dominance, and the X+1 Imperative

“[The US and China} are very close [on AI]. Remember, this is a long-term, infinite race.”

Jensen Huang, May 2025

The race for artificial intelligence supremacy is heavy and hot. Last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made headlines with his assessment that China is “not behind” the United States in AI development. But buried in his remarks was a phrase that deserves far more attention — his characterization of AI development as a “long-term, infinite race.”

This seemingly casual description reveals a profound and disturbing truth about the trajectory of AI development — one that I’ve previously described as the “X+1 Imperative.” Huang’s framing, while more anodyne and corporate-friendly than my own analysis, effectively confirms the dangerous game-theoretic trap in which the world has become ensnared.

The Convergence of Corporate and Existential Calculus

When the CEO of the world’s most valuable company — one whose business model revolves around selling the computational hardware powering the AI revolution — describes AI competition as “infinite,” we should pay close attention. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s a business forecast. Nvidia’s valuation depends on this race continuing indefinitely, with ever-increasing investments in compute.

What Huang presents as a simple business reality, I’ve described in more explicit terms as the X+1 Imperative: if your competitor achieves X level of AI capability, you must achieve X+1 to maintain advantage. This creates an endless escalation with no natural equilibrium. The implications of this dynamic are far more severe than Huang’s mild phrasing suggests.

Notably, Huang’s comments came in the context of U.S. export controls that could cost Nvidia $5.5 billion. Yet despite this significant short-term hit to his company’s bottom line, he remains unfazed — because he understands that the “infinite race” creates effectively infinite demand for AI compute, regardless of temporary regulatory obstacles. The export controls are merely a speed bump on an endless highway.

Behind the Corporate Veneer: The Planetary Stakes

The seemingly benign corporate framing of an “infinite race” masks the planetary transformation such a race necessitates. As I’ve outlined in my analysis of the X+1 Imperative, this trajectory leads to:

1. Acceleration (Now-2027): Exponential increases in AI compute deployment, intensifying competition for energy resources, with security and environmental concerns subordinated to speed
2. Transformation (2027–2035): Massive energy infrastructure buildout, with forests cleared for solar farms, waterfronts dedicated to data centers, agricultural land repurposed, and habitats destroyed at unprecedented scale
3. Domination (2035–2050): Every viable location turned to energy or compute infrastructure, with society reorganized entirely around AI development and resources diverted from human needs
4. Endgame (Beyond): A planet-scale transformation serving compute demands, with remaining wilderness sacrificed for resources and human civilization subordinated to AI development imperatives

Huang’s “infinite race” necessarily implies this transformation. Our planet has limited resources, limited space, and limited energy. A truly “infinite” AI race would eventually consume everything. And that is indeed the path we are on. That is an “insane” pathway, as technologist Tristan Harris observed in a recent TED talk.

The Game Theory Remains Unchanged

What’s particularly troubling about Huang’s framing is how it normalizes what is fundamentally an unstable and dangerous competitive dynamic. By characterizing the AI race as “long-term” and “infinite,” he’s acknowledging that this isn’t a sprint to some stable endpoint, but a perpetual escalation; there is no single breakthrough will provide permanent advantage; and the only winning strategy is continuous, ever-increasing investment.

This maps perfectly onto what I’ve described as a multi-player prisoner’s dilemma with three critical characteristics:

• A continuous strategy space (not just binary choices of “develop” or “don’t develop”)
• Dramatically asymmetric payoffs (where small leads can compound into decisive advantages)
• Negative-sum outcomes (where maximum development speed by all actors produces worse results for everyone)

Huang’s assessment that China and the U.S. are “very close” only intensifies the competitive pressure. When rivals are neck-and-neck, the imperative to gain even a small edge becomes overwhelming. This is precisely when rational actors make their most desperate moves.

The Export Control Paradox

Perhaps most revealing is the context in which Huang made these remarks. The U.S. Commerce Department had just announced new export licensing requirements for Nvidia’s H20, AMD’s MI308 AI chips, and their equivalents destined for China. These controls represent an attempt to slow China’s progress in AI — thereby preserving America’s perceived lead in this strategic technology.

Yet Huang’s assessment contradicts the premise behind these controls. If China is “not behind” and the race is “infinite,” then export controls can at best create temporary friction, not meaningful strategic advantage. Indeed, such controls may actually accelerate China’s development of domestic alternatives, as evidenced by Huang’s praise for Huawei’s “incredible” progress in “computing and network technology, all these essential capabilities to advance AI.”

This reveals a fundamental contradiction in the current approach to AI governance. Export controls assume that limiting access to cutting-edge hardware can preserve strategic advantage, but the “infinite race” dynamic ensures that competitors will find alternative paths forward, potentially creating parallel innovation ecosystems that further accelerate overall development.

The Need for a Different Framework

Huang’s “infinite race” framing, while less dire in its presentation than my X+1 Imperative analysis, points to the same conclusion: this competitive dynamic is patently unsustainable in terms of maintaining any reasonable balance.

This understanding should drive us toward one of the two paths I’ve previously outlined:

1. Singleton Restraint: Where a single AI system achieves decisive advantage and imposes restraint from above — an outcome Huang’s company might actually benefit from, but which raises profound questions about autonomy and control. I don’t want to live in a world dominated by an all-powerful AI system.
2. Human Cooperative Restraint: Where humanity develops frameworks similar to nuclear arms control — with binding international agreements on compute limits, verification regimes, domestic regulations on energy use, and shared safety standards. This should be the obvious preference for all rational and compassionate people (but hey, I’m biased).

Huang’s remarks suggest that the market alone will not produce the second outcome. As CEO of Nvidia, his fiduciary duty is to maximize shareholder value, not to impose voluntary restraints that might disadvantage his company. His description of an “infinite race” is not a call for moderation but a promise of endless growth.

Breaking the Spell of Infinity

The most dangerous aspect of Huang’s framing is its normalization of what should be recognized as an existential risk. By describing the AI race as “infinite,” he makes the unsustainable seem inevitable — as though we have no choice but to participate in this endless competition, regardless of consequences.

This framing serves corporate interests well: it justifies the massive investments that drive Nvidia’s valuation while positioning the company as merely responding to market demands rather than actively shaping them. It transforms what should be seen as a dangerous arms race into a natural feature of technological progress.

Breaking free of this frame requires recognizing that:

1. No race is truly infinite — all competitions eventually reach natural limits or change form
2. The current trajectory of AI development cannot continue indefinitely within physical constraints
3. The choice between unrestrained competition and coordinated governance is a human one, not a technological inevitability

From Infinite Race to Sustainable Development

A more responsible framing would acknowledge the limits of our planetary systems and the dangers of unrestrained competition. It would recognize that true technological progress isn’t measured by raw computational power but by its contribution to human flourishing within sustainable boundaries.

This alternative vision would redefine AI development not as an “infinite race” but as a bounded field of innovation, where:

• Compute efficiency is valued over raw scale
• Energy usage is constrained by planetary limits
• Safety standards are prerequisites for deployment
• Cooperation on existential risks supersedes competition for market share

Achieving this vision requires breaking the spell of Huang’s “infinite race” narrative. It demands that we recognize the X+1 Imperative for what it is: not an inevitable feature of technological progress, but a dangerous game-theoretic trap that threatens to transform our planet into a sacrifice zone for computation.

A Call for Honest Assessment

Huang’s assessment that China and the U.S. are essentially neck-and-neck in AI is, in one sense, refreshingly honest. It contradicts the often hyperbolic claims of American technological supremacy that drive much of the current policy discourse. His acknowledgment that Huawei has made “enormous progress” similarly cuts through nationalist narratives about Chinese technological capabilities.

This honesty about the current state of competition should be extended to an honest assessment of where that competition leads. If we truly face an “infinite race” for AI dominance, we must confront the finite nature of our planetary and financial resources, and the catastrophic risks of unrestrained development.

The alternative is to continue sleepwalking toward planetary transformation, guided by corporate narratives that normalize the unsustainable as inevitable. Huang’s “infinite race” and my X+1 Imperative describe the same deadly dynamic — the difference is merely in how explicitly we acknowledge its consequences.

As we stand at this crossroads, we face a simple choice: Will we recognize the limits of our planet and our technological wisdom, implementing governance frameworks that channel AI development toward human flourishing? Or will we continue the “infinite race” until it crashes against the hard limits of planetary physics — or worse, produces systems beyond human control?

[Claude 3.7 Sonnet assisted in writing this essay.]