The arms race is created by American companies who justify the risk by claiming China will win the race if they don't. But it's the American companies who are purshing the arms race forward.
The only way it could be avoided is if the world had an effective cooperation framework _before_ the tool was discovered but we're still in developmental infancy in that regard. You can argue that this accelerationism makes things worse but I don't think you can argue that it's causal.