It's espionage and diffusion. Their only play is to demonetize the leading labs by giving it away for free in the hope that it buys them the year and a half to two years that they need to catch up. Part of that is the time they need to close the gap on their chips given that the American chips can't be optimized all that much in the angstrom range.

This is state sponsored bullshit and it isn't going to work since this is America's one serious shot at rendering China's underhanded, vizier style, spirit of the law killing long game moot. America has rightfully stamped it a Manhattan project and will reroute financial gravity and energy infrastructure to make it happen either way.