China is racing to build a self-sufficient artificial intelligence stack, from cutting edge chips to nationwide deployment, and its leaders now treat that effort with the urgency of a wartime program.

Applying the logic behind the Manhattan Project to the development of AI is appealing—a mad, government-sponsored dash towards unleashing a novel science will set the stage for the future of combat.

This month marks the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the detonation of a plutonium device known as “the Gadget” in the Southern New Mexico desert. The test, which sent a giant mushroom cloud ...