Physical AI development diverges heavily between China and the US. US focuses on foundation models and software-first approaches—companies like OpenAI and Anthropic push reasoning capabilities before deployment. China goes hardware-heavy immediately: robotics factories, autonomous vehicles, and manufacturing automation at scale. The regulatory gap matters too. China's government accelerates physical deployment through industrial policy and less liability friction. US deals with safety reviews, liability concerns, and slower infrastructure adoption. Compute infrastructure also splits: US leads in training clusters (H100s, custom TPUs), while China optimizes inference deployment across edge devices and local manufacturing. The real kicker? China's physical AI gets real-world data faster through mass deployment in controlled environments. US builds better models in theory, but China stress-tests them in factories and streets first. Different philosophies: US wants AGI that thinks, China wants AI that moves and produces.