In an interview with Maria Kądzielska-Koper for DoRzeczy.pl, Michał Owerczuk analyzed the technological and geopolitical competition between the United States and China over artificial intelligence. The article was accompanied by a still from his film “SLOP!”.
Owerczuk noted that while the shift resembles an industrial revolution from a macroeconomic view, looking at it through geopolitics and the tech industry reveals a new cold war. Nations are not merely competing over software models, but over computing infrastructure, chip supply chains, cloud control, energy access, and regulatory standards. “Frontier AI is today treated as an area of systemic risk and national security” (translated from Polish), he explained, describing a race among developers to push boundaries toward AGI.
Highlighting advances in generative video, Owerczuk pointed to breakthroughs offering high resolution, temporal stability, and realistic physics. He described this dynamic as a race to create a digital reality indistinguishable from physical reality, impacting the audio-video sector, visual effects, advertising, and media, while determining who will shape the architecture of the future economy and culture.
Assessing the balance between global powers, Owerczuk contrasted the two approaches. The United States leverages structural advantages through research labs, hyperscalers, massive capital, and global distribution. Meanwhile, China focuses on aggressive optimization, efficiency, and reducing unit costs, pursuing techniques such as underwater data centers to cut cooling and water needs, as well as architectures requiring less compute.
Original source: Do Rzeczy (in Polish).
Source: Do Rzeczy (opens in a new tab). Facts checked against the source on .
