ChinaEconTalk

ChinaEconTalk

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ChinaEconTalk episodes

  • Building Compute in America

    Despite leading the world in AI innovation, there’s no guarantee that America will rise to meet the challenge of AI infrastructure. Specifically, the key technological barrier for data center construction within the next 5 years is new power capacity.

    To discuss policy solutions, ChinaTalk interviewed Ben Della Rocca, who helped write the AI infrastructure executive order and formerly served as director for technology and national security on Biden’s NSC, as well as Arnab Datta, director at IFP and managing director at Employ America, and Tim Fist, a director at IFP. Arnab and Tim just published a fantastic three-part series exploring the policy changes needed to ensure that AGI is invented in the USA and deployed through American data centers.

    In today’s interview, we discuss…

    • The need for new power generation driven by ballooning demand for compute,
    • The impact of the January 2025 executive order on AI infrastructure,
    • Which energy technologies can (and can’t) power gigawatt-scale AI training facilities (and why Jordan is all-in on GEOTHERMAL),
    • Challenges for financing moonshot green power ideas and the role of government action,
    • The failure of the market to prioritize AI lab security, and what can be done to fend off threats from adversaries and non-state actors.


      • Outtro music: Ghost Crew - 蝴蝶武士 (Butterfly Warriors) (Youtube link)

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      1 hr 16 min
    • Manus: A DeepSeek Moment?

      A Wuhan-developed AI agent went viral this weekend. Guests Rohit Krishnan of the substack Strange Loop Canon, Shawn Wang of Latent Space, and Dean Ball of Mercatus and Hyperdimensional join us to discuss.

      We get into

      • What Manus is and isn't
      • What Manus tells us about the broader AI ecosystem's ability to produce products we actually want to use
      • The political economy and liability issues that AI agents will engender


        • More ChinaTalk coverage: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/manus-chinas-latest-ai-sensation

        Outtro Music:

        La Marelu "Mala" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAB5rx8mqjM&ab_channel=LaMarelu-Topic

        Alaska y Dinarama "A Quién Le Importa" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uQhdDtdXg0&ab_channel=YouMoreTv-Espect%C3%A1culo

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        53 min
      • EMERGENCY POD: Trump's Pivot to Putin, AGI + The Future of Warfare

        Note: This episode was recorded Wednesday February 26th, two days before Zelenskyy's press conference with J.D. Vance and Trump in the White House.

        Shashank Joshi (Defence Editor at The Economist) and Michael Horowitz (Biden's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities, now back at Penn) come on the show to discuss:

        • Ukraine's Chances on the Battlefield: We revisit J.D. Vance's tweet war with Shashank where he claims Ukraine is fated to lose, highlighting how war is nonlinear and dependent on political cohesion, economic strength, and defense industrial capacity beyond just manpower.
        • Trump's Pivot to Putin: We try to think through what Trump is doing with Ukraine and Russia at the strategic level and what the long term and second order consequences are.
        • AI and the Future of Warfare: We discuss of how AGI would transform warfare, with Horowitz suggesting progress will be incremental rather than revolutionary, emphasizing government adoption challenges over 0 to 1 technical breakthroughs.
        • "Precise Mass" in Combat: Ukrainian forces have demonstrated how AI-guided drones achieving 80%+ hit rates have changed battlefield dynamics, introducing the concept of "precise mass" - lower-cost precision systems deployed at scale across domains including air, land, and sea. See Mike's Foreign Affairs piece on the topic here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/battles-precise-mass-technology-war-horowitz
        • Defense Innovation Challenges: Western bureaucratic processes severely impede military innovation, with Horowitz noting that reprogramming just 0.05% of the defense budget required over 40 congressional briefings, contrasting with Ukraine's wartime innovation speed and calling for acquisition reform.


          Recommended Books:

          • Under the Nuclear Shadow by Fiona Cunningham
          • Army of None by Paul Scharre
          • Billion Dollar Spy by David Hoffman


            Outtro Music:

            Santigold, You'll Find a Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IodbPh7RkBw

            Vampire Weekend, Walcott: https://open.spotify.com/track/0BZY839qKXibapu4S0GYE2?si=7ecc773a95ee4d62

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            2 hr
          • Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

            Can sanctions really work? What lessons can we draw from US sanctions on Iran, Russia, and China in the 21st century?

            To find out, we interviewed Eddie Fishman, a former civil servant at the Department of State and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia. His new book, Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare, is a gripping history of the past 20 years of American sanctions policy.

            In this show, we’ll talk about…

            • The evolution of U.S. sanctions policy, from Iraq and Cuba to Iran and Russia,
            • How Reagan’s deal with the Saudis turned the dollar into an economic chokepoint,
            • The incredible success of sanctions against Iran, and how that playbook could have been used to punish Russia,
            • Historical lessons in enforcement that are relevant for export controls on China today,
            • The role of great civil servants like Stuart Levey, Daleep Singh, Victoria Nuland, and Matt Pottinger in building state power,
            • Institutional challenges for economic warfare and the consequences of failure to reform,
            • Strategies for writing groundbreaking books about modern history.


              • Outro music: 1970s Iranian Psychadelic Rock, Gole Yakhe by Kourosh Yaghmaei https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmhqVPXOKo4

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              1 hr 39 min
            • Innovation Emergency: The Role of IP

              How do patents influence emerging technology innovation? How far could AI and DOGE push our current IP regime? Does it matter that China issues way more patents than the US does?

              To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed ​​Andrei Iancu, who served as the director of the US Patent Office under the first Trump administration. Andrei has degrees in aerospace and mechanical engineering, and worked at the legendary Hughes Aircraft Company before going to law school. He is currently in private practice at Sullivan and Cromwell.

              Co-hosting today is ChinaTalk editor and second year law student at Duke, Nicholas Welch.

              We get into…

              • The mounting evidence that China's patent system now dominates America’s, and whether these indicators constitute an emergency in the innovation ecosystem,
              • Why some US companies now prefer Chinese courts for patent enforcement,
              • The fundamental tension between private rights of inventors and public access to innovations,
              • What congressional inaction on patent eligibility means for AI innovation, and the bills that congress could pass to immediately jumpstart emerging tech investment,
              • What the current administration could do to help USPTO juice the economy,
              • Controversy surrounding the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and whether DOGE could put PTAB on the chopping block,
              • How Trump will approach patent law and intellectual property rights, including perspectives on appointments and potential reforms.

                • Thanks to CSIS for partnering with us to bring you this episode, the first in a three-episode CSIS Chip Chat series.

                Outtro Music: Lil Green, I'm Going to Copyright Your Kisses (1941) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ye39JuJZ4k&ab_channel=LilGreen-Topic

                Nellie Hill, I'm Gunna Copyright Your Kisses (1951) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3OcMdxpWas&ab_channel=krobigraubart

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                1 hr 9 min
              • China's Great Power Wars: Lessons from Imperial History for Today

                How has Chinese hegemony shaped power relations in East Asia? Why did imperial China conquer Tibet and Xinjiang but not Vietnam or Korea? Can learning from history help maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait?

                Today’s interview begins with one shocking truth — while medieval Europe suffered under near-constant war, East Asia’s Middle Ages were defined by great power peace.

                To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Professor David C. Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC and co-author of Beyond Power Transitions: The Lessons of East Asian History and the Future of U.S.-China Relations.

                We discuss…

                • How East Asian nations managed to peacefully coexist for centuries,
                • Why lessons from European history don’t always apply in non-European contexts,
                • Why wars begin and how they can be avoided,
                • How to interpret outbreaks of violence in Asia — including conflicts with the Mongols, China’s meddling in Vietnam, and Japan’s early attempts at empire,
                • State behaviors that cannot be explained by power transition theory alone,
                • Whether the Thucydides trap makes U.S.-China war inevitable,
                • Old school methods for managing cross-strait relations.


                  • Co-hosting today is Ilari Mäkelä of the On Humans podcast.

                  Outro music: 荒城の月 "The Moon over the Ruined Castle" by 滝廉太郎 Rentarō Taki (Youtube link)

                  Cover photo of a Song Dynasty axe-wielding god https://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/2016/12/song-chinese-armor-in-religious.html

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                  1 hr 30 min
                • Anthropic's Dario Amodei on AI Competition

                  Dario Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic. In today’s interview, we discuss…

                  • Whether an AI innovation race is inevitable between the US and China,
                  • How the US should update export controls in light of DeepSeek’s R1 release,
                  • DeepSeek’s willingness to generate information about bioweapons,
                  • Technical defenses against model distillation and AI espionage,
                  • How advanced AI could eventually impact democracy,
                  • Whether there is tension between export controls and the belief that AI will broadly increase human flourishing.


                    • Dario's blogposts:

                    Machines of Loving Grace: https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace

                    On DeepSeek and Export Controls: https://darioamodei.com/on-deepseek-and-export-controls

                    Outro Music: Lykke Li, I Follow Rivers (Magician Remix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6wfWu0JvA&ab_channel=LykkeLi

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                    45 min
                  • DeepSeek: What It Means and What Happens Next

                    Kevin Xu of Interconnected and Interconnected Capital and I knock it out of the park with a roundup episode exploring:

                    • What DeepSeek does and doesn't illustrate about Chinese innovation
                    • Tensions between open-source cosmopolitanism and nationalism built into DeepSeek and the broader Chinese tech community
                    • DeepSeek's organizational and talent management strategy, parallels to OpenAI, and what the fame will mean for the firm and Chinese AI policy
                    • What DeepSeek should and may mean for the future of export controls and broader US innovation policy


                      • The JS Tan article referenced: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/deepseeks-secret-to-success

                      Dario's first article on our happy AI future: https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace

                      Dario's second article on why America needs to export control China: https://darioamodei.com/on-deepseek-and-export-controls

                      Outtro Music: Dizkar, 愛縂時刻盛開 https://open.spotify.com/track/1rXneAS9Djts7fwRGHUeG5?si=b2b29714802948de

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                      1 hr 12 min

                    About ChinaEconTalk

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                    A weekly conversation exploring China's economy and tech scene. Guests include a wide range of policy analysts, business professionals, journalists, and academics. A SupChina production, hosted by…