AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

These four waves all feed off different kinds of data, and each one presents a unique opportunity for the United States or China to seize the lead. We’ll see that China is in a strong position to lead or co-lead in internet AI and perception AI, and will likely soon catch up with the United States in autonomous AI. Currently, business AI remains th

Each of these waves harnesses AI’s power in a different way, disrupting different sectors and weaving artificial intelligence deeper into the fabric of our daily lives. The first two waves—internet AI and business AI—are already all around us, reshaping our digital and financial worlds in ways we can barely register. They are tightening internet co

research to a new level.

Over the subsequent decades, neural networks enjoyed brief stints of prominence, followed by near-total abandonment.

Battles with Silicon Valley may have created some of China’s homegrown internet Goliaths, but it was cutthroat Chinese domestic competition that forged a generation of gladiator entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs in the valley are often the children of successful professionals, such as computer scientists, dentists, engineers, and academics. Growing up they were constantly told that they—yes, they in particular—could change the world. Their undergraduate years were spent learning the art of coding from the world’s leading researchers but also

When the Soviet Union launched the first human-made satellite into orbit in October 1957, it had an instant and profound effect on the American psyche and government policy. The event sparked widespread U.S. public anxiety about perceived Soviet technological superiority, with Americans following the satellite across the night sky and tuning in to

Jinri Toutiao (meaning “today’s headlines”; English name: “ByteDance”).

These are visions of Hao Jingfang, a Chinese science-fiction writer and economics researcher. Hao’s novelette “Folding Beijing” won the prestigious Hugo Award in 2016 for its arresting depiction of a city in which economic classes are separated into different worlds.