Trend Global AI competition shifts to how fast technology, markets and society form a virtuous cycle

Summary

The essay observes that global AI competition is no longer a contest of technical capability alone. What matters increasingly is how quickly technology, markets and society form a single self-reinforcing cycle. Leading countries already design development, use, regulation and safety standards at the same time. The United States pursues AI safety verification together with ecosystem support for firms, the EU pairs AI legislation with adoption and diffusion policies, and China is building structures in which data, industry and services run on one platform. The author treats this as the benchmark against which Korea's parallel, stage-by-stage policy structure falls short.