China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has given China five years to dominate Artificial Intelligence. He believes China must accomplish this goal in order to become the world’s tech giant. But the United States is doing everything it can to stop China from reaching its goal. Can Washington stop US and European advanced chips from reaching China? It seems not, as the arrival of DeepSeek shows. Will AI development be throttled by the Chinese government’s heavy censorship? Can China achieve its goal? 

Guest: Karen Hao, journalist and engineer. Writing appears in The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal. Author of the upcoming Empire of AI. 

Book Recommendations: 

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee 

Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future by Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions. Rowhome’s Creative Director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is Rowhome’s Executive Producer. Face-Off is a proud member of the Airwave podcast network.

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