Researchers from China's elite universities are narrowing the gap with leading Western AI firms, with figures like Tsinghua University professor Tang Jie and his former student Yang Zhilin (founder of Moonshot AI) now heading companies valued in the tens of billions of dollars. Tang Jie co-founded Z.AI, which ranks close behind Anthropic and OpenAI in model capability and global usage. The rapid rise of Chinese AI has prompted urgent questions in Silicon Valley and Washington about how these labs advanced so quickly, and whether their progress poses risks to US national security.