The NYT reporter probably has no idea that 3 Chinese chatbots are only a few months away. Also, China and US' AI R&D is engaged in a long-term competition, a few months ahead is only a temporary achievement.
You seem to be operating under a misconception. There is a competition in speed of computing; there is no competition in artificial intelligence.
The fundamental, immutable law of AI is that models get smarter with more data. If you want your AI to spew profanity and peddle bullsh*t, you feed it data from the internet cesspool made up of 90% fake news. But if you want your AI to do something useful in the physical world, you give it data collected from the physical world.
This is why Internet of Things is, in fact, the true measure of AI development. IoT is the giving of physical objects digital footprints so they generate (quantity) and interconnect (quality) data. From that understanding, you can then extrapolate that artificial intelligence is not tied to software development at all, but rather hardware development: whoever can produce and connect the most IoT devices to attain valuable real life data.
When I frame the AI "race" in terms of production and structural implementation, who is leading becomes obvious. Making a neural network that analyzes daily consumption trends to optimize power grid operation for millions of people is useful. Making a chatbot that imitates redditors or used car salesmen is useful... for a nation of bellicose politicians.
This reminds me of 3D printing. Western countries declared it would make regular manufacturing obsolete, then proceeded to forget all about it a few years later. Meanwhile, China is using it to print jet engines.
Truly revolutionary technologies have no place in the West. After all, they do not really produce anything other than meaningless media, legal services and financial loopholes. For those, a 2D printer does just fine.