China could overtake America in AI | The Economist

Are you worried. about the Chinese. catching up and getting ahead? Given that the. Chinese AI companies. are doing as well as they are, with a relatively small. amount of compute, it seems that. if they had a lot of compute. there's a good chance. that they would be. the leaders. And at some point. they probably will have a lot. of compute. Ergo they will be the leaders. There's a good chance.

that they are the leaders. at some point. You can think of. the constraints on AI. essentially being electricity. and AI chips. And then for physical AI. the robots. China has also got some. very good robot companies. China is very strong on robots, very strong on digital AI. And if you look at. electricity production. you can say. AI is a function of... whatever the limiting factor is.

if it's chips or electricity, China has far more electricity. than the United States. In fact, China has more electricity. than the United States, Europe and India. combined already. and is heading to... my guess is China gets to. four times. the electricity production. of the US, which is roughly proportionate. to the population. What should the US government. do about this? Presumably it is a little alarming. if you have an authoritarian. regime far ahead.

in the most powerful technology. And clearly. what the US government. has been trying to do is, with the export controls. and so forth, keep China back. Do you think they should ban. the use of. Kimi K3, for example? Well the US government can't... they can pass some law. that prevents. US companies from using. Chinese models but they. can't stop the rest of the world. from using them. So it's not like. the US government. has authority over China.

or the rest of the world. Do you think they should stop US. companies from using them? There's talk of that. right now, right? I don't think that helps. That won't stop China from being. the leader in AI.