Stanford’s 2026 AI Index shows the performance gap between US and Chinese AI models has compressed to just 2.7%, down from a double-digit lead as recently as 2023, as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 holds a 39-point Elo lead over ByteDance’s best-performing model on the benchmarks Stanford tracks. Summary The 423-page report, released April 14, finds that the US and Chinese models have traded first place multiple times since early 2025, with DeepSeek-R1 briefly matching the top US model in February 2025 before being surpassed. The US leads China in private AI investment ($285.9 billion vs $12.4 billion) and notable model…