About RaceToWhat.org
The race to build Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, is the defining technological competition of our era.
AGI is AI that can outperform humans across intellectual tasks, including the ability to improve AI itself, potentially leading to a rapid cycle of recursive self-improvement.
Nations, corporations, and research labs are pouring billions of dollars and many of the world's brightest minds into the effort. Coverage of that race fills newspapers, podcasts, policy forums, and conference stages.
But almost none of it asks the deeper question: What happens when someone wins the race to AGI?
RaceToWhat.org exists to explore that question.
AGI is likely not just another powerful technology. If advanced AI systems become capable of improving themselves, accelerating scientific discovery, and designing even more capable successors, the arrival of AGI could mark the beginning of a transition unlike anything in human history.
If the United States reaches AGI before China, what should it do with that advantage? If China wins first, what should the rest of the world expect? Would a winner share the benefits, build global safeguards, seek permanent strategic advantage, or attempt to prevent rivals from reaching the same threshold?
RaceToWhat.org tracks the race to AGI, but our core work is exploring what comes after: what winning means for geopolitics, the economy, work, education, warfare, democracy, and the future of human control.
What We Cover
The Leaderboard tracks AI capability across nations, companies, and research labs.
Race Dispatch covers breakthroughs, setbacks, corporate strategy, government action, and the geopolitical moves shaping the race.
Governing the Race examines regulation, international cooperation, and the challenge of steering a technology advancing at unprecedented speed.
After the Race is our core work: exploring what happens if AGI creates a decisive strategic advantage and how a world shaped by increasingly capable AI may unfold.
Our Story
RaceToWhat.org is a project of Safe AI Society, Inc., a nonprofit founded in Portland, Oregon, in February 2019.
At the time, many experts believed human-level AI was likely decades away. During a presentation that year, founder Jon Down used a photo of his newborn granddaughter, Lucille, on the title slide. The point was simple: even if transformative AI arrived near the end of the century, it would still affect the lives of children being born today.
The assumption then was that these questions belonged largely to future generations. Seven years later in 2026, the timeline has radically compressed, and it won’t just be babies that live to see AI that is more capable than humans in nearly all things, it will be all of us.
The question that motivated Safe AI Society in 2019 has become more urgent than ever: Where is this race going, and what will it be like when we get there?
About the Founder
Jon Down is the founder of Safe AI Society and lead analyst and editor of RaceToWhat.org.
He is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and AI at the University of Portland. He has a PhD in Strategy from the University of Washington, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BS in Engineering from Oregon State University.
His work focuses on helping leaders, students, and organizations understand the strategic implications of rapidly advancing AI systems. Through his consulting company, Gen AI Corp, he also works with senior leaders and organizations to build practical AI fluency, develop responsible AI strategies, and prepare for the deeper strategic disruptions ahead.
A Nonprofit Publication
RaceToWhat.org is published by Safe AI Society, Inc., an Oregon nonprofit currently applying for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
All content is free to access. Our mission is to help citizens, leaders, and institutions think clearly about one of the most consequential transitions in human history before that transition fully arrives.