How does "The first to get AGI/ASI wins" actually work?

Say the US gets AGI/ASI first and China lags behind by 3- 6 months and then gets it. How does the US win? Do they somehow actively prevent China from getting it in the first place, thereby starting WW3?

Same question but smaller scale: say OpenAI gets it first and Google lags behind by 3 months. How does OpenAI win? How do they prevent Google from getting it too? Does the US government reward the winner with a complete monopoly?