Despite their geopolitical rivalry, the United States and China have forged a surprising partnership in artificial intelligence research, as highlighted by data from Georgetown University’s Emerging Technology Observatory. Over the past decade, researchers from these two nations have co-authored more than 46,000 AI papers, outpacing any other international collaboration. This cooperation, involving elite institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Tsinghua University, has driven significant advancements in fields such as machine learning and natural language processing. While tensions persist between the two powers, their shared efforts in AI demonstrate a unique intersection of competition and collaboration, yielding breakthroughs that shape the global technological landscape.