The AI gap between China and the US is now very small.

Anduril Founder: US AI Lead Is 'Extremely Slim'—China Deploying Faster, Pentagon's Stance on Anthropic 'Right'

Palmer Luckey, the Oculus founder turned defense tech CEO, has a warning: America's edge in AI is razor-thin. In an Axios interview, he said China is "doing a very good job" distilling U.S. models and using open-source AI to deploy across government and industry at a clip the U.S. can't match. He called it a "structural advantage" China is maximizing—fast.

While the Pentagon is using AI "effectively at scale" in Iran, Luckey pointed to laggards like the Agriculture and Education departments. The gap within the U.S. government is real.

On Anduril's end, things are moving fast. Its massive Ohio factory, Arsenal-1, is weeks from production—ahead of schedule. Luckey also backed the Pentagon's decision to flag Anthropic as a supply chain risk, arguing that no private exec should have more military sway than the president. And his next frontier? Underground warfare, then the moon.

Anduril just locked in a $20 billion Army contract for its Lattice AI platform and supporting systems—with an $87 million first order already in for counter-drone tech. The company is no longer just a disruptor; it's the establishment.