US and UK Encourage Openness While China Even Bans Travel: Why AI Talent Is Treated Differently [Tech Talk]

Freedom to Change Jobs in the U.S.

Recruiting Top Talent Fuels Startup Growth

China Treats Private-Sector AI Professionals as Strategic Assets

Editor's NoteThis series explains essential yet often unfamiliar technology topics from AI, semiconductors, and telecommunications to biotechnology, making them easy to understand for our daily lives.

The United States and China are fiercely competing for dominance in artificial intelligence (AI). While both countries are mobilizing massive capital for data center investments, their approaches to managing AI talent differ markedly. AI professionals are treated differently depending on each country's position and level of advancement in the current AI industry. Western countries such as the United States and United Kingdom are increasingly encouraging the movement of talent, while China is taking steps to protect these workers as strategic assets, intensifying measures to keep them from leaving the country.

Freedom of Movement for Employees in the U.S. ... Laying the Foundation for AI Startup Growth

Panoramic view of the northern area of San Francisco, USA. Photo by AP Yonhap News

In the United States, considered the global center of the AI industry, AI professionals enjoy significant freedom in changing jobs. It is common to see star researchers move between AI research labs and big tech companies—such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and XAI—much like athletes in a soccer transfer market.

This makes it difficult for any single company to maintain a technological advantage for long periods. The design of transformers, which are at the heart of large language models (LLMs), depends on the capabilities of top-tier engineers. However, as these engineers continue to move between companies, neither OpenAI nor Anthropic can keep their performance edge for more than a few months at a time.

Why is this possible? California state law, home to Silicon Valley, has long favored protecting employees' freedom to change jobs. Especially after the spread of remote work post-COVID-19, job mobility has become more active. With the implementation of the 'AB 1076' legislation in 2024, it became illegal for companies to include non-compete clauses in employment contracts in principle.

Although this policy was originally intended to protect workers, AI companies—especially startups—are also major beneficiaries. Firms like Anthropic and OpenAI fueled their rapid growth by aggressively recruiting AI talents once monopolized by established big tech companies.

The UK Seeks to Keep Pace with Silicon Valley

Demis Hassabis, founder of Google DeepMind (left), and John Jumper, researcher. John Jumper had to pause his work for about a year due to a "garden leave" clause while moving from DeepMind to Anthropic's London research lab. Photo by AP Yonhap News

The United Kingdom, recognized as the largest AI hub in Europe and the second largest in the Western world, has been benchmarking Silicon Valley. Traditionally, the UK has enforced "garden leave" non-compete clauses, which prevent senior staff responsible for key operations from joining competing firms in the same industry for a minimum of 6 months and up to 12 months.

However, in the past several months, there have been growing calls to abolish garden leave in order to better compete with Silicon Valley. On September 29 (local time), leading British AI companies even released an official letter to the government urging the elimination of the garden leave provision.

Representatives of British AI companies, including Inherent founded by Google researchers and having attracted investments worth about 7 trillion won, sent a letter to the government on the 29th of last month urging the abolition of the Garden Leave clause. Screenshot from X

The UK is considered the second most attractive destination for top AI talent after the United States. World-class engineers such as Demis Hassabis, known for AlphaGo, and John Jumper, who led the development of AlphaFold and won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, are still active in the field. However, there have been complaints that transitioning from an existing employer to a new startup or competitor takes 6 to 12 months or more, causing research progress to lag behind the U.S.

China Treats AI Engineers as 'Strategic Assets'

While the leading AI hubs in the West are taking down barriers for talent movement, there are countries moving in the opposite direction. China, which is vying with the U.S. for AI supremacy, is instead treating AI professionals as strategic assets, restricting their freedom of movement in order to protect them.

According to a Bloomberg report on September 28, the Chinese government has recently started restricting overseas travel for key personnel in the AI sector. This measure now extends beyond AI engineers to include their spouses, children, and other family members. Previously, such controls were limited to talent in strategic industries like semiconductors, but now they have expanded to AI.

It has already been reported that well-known AI startup founders and executives at strategically important AI-related companies have been included on the list. The report stated that this tightening of regulations began after American big tech company Meta pursued the acquisition of Manus, a China-based AI startup.

Chinese authorities are strengthening measures to prevent the outflow of AI talent. Photo by The Asia Business Daily Database

China is still at a disadvantage compared to the United States in terms of capital and technological capability. This is understood as an effort to prevent 'brain drain' by restricting the freedom of engineers. To date, it has been common for China’s top engineers to graduate from Western universities and then find employment at Western big tech and large corporations.

In fact, China has long treated talent as a strategic asset, offering special privileges. Executives at state-owned enterprises and scientists in the nuclear sector, closely linked to national defense, have long faced travel restrictions. However, it remains to be seen whether this strategy will work in the rapidly developing new industry of AI, which is evolving through fierce competition in capital and technology.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.