China’s AI and tech breakthroughs are built on decades of work. Here’s what other nations can learn

China News Service/Getty In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a race for technological and ideological supremacy. The Cold War was still in its early years and each side was intently focused on the other’s scientific and military progress. The US believed it was firmly in front. So the Americans were caught almost completely off guard in October 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik-1, the world’s first ever artificial…