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TSD Summit Sessions: Selina Xu on China’s AI strategy and capabilities

Stop the World

2025/12/11
Stop the World

Stop the World

2025/12/11

Shownote

Today we continue the AI theme with a TSD Summit Sessions conversation on China and AI with Selina Xu, who leads China and AI research and strategic initiatives in the Office of Eric Schmidt.   Who is winning the AI race between the US and China? Are they focusing on the same things? Where do China’s capabilities stand today? How is AI being adopted and integrated into economies? What are the benefits of China’s open-source approach? Where does the US maintain a strategic advantage?    These are just some of the questions David Wroe tackles with Selina in today’s interview. This podcast really covers a lot of ground, and is a must listen for anyone interested in the development of artificial intelligence and why it matters who is leading the development. It is also timely given the US Administration’s decision this week to allow Nvidia to sell more powerful chips to China, which will likely impact key areas in which Selina says the US has a current advantage, in particular in the field of compute.    If you want more regular updates on cyber and tech issues, subscribe to ASPI’s Daily Cyber and Tech Digest via https://aspicts.substack.com/ [https://aspicts.substack.com/]

Highlights

This episode dives into the evolving dynamics of AI development between the US and China, moving beyond headlines to explore how each nation is shaping its technological future through distinct strategies, policies, and priorities.
09:10
China's AI regulation pivoted toward supporting open-source AI this year due to market impact and economic potential
12:12
China has shifted its government attitude towards open source, making it a national strategy and integrating AI into the economy
20:43
DeepSeek had a 'catfish effect' on the Chinese AI ecosystem, prompting most companies to release open-source models
26:25
Compute is the biggest bottleneck for China's AI development
29:45
China's migration from NVIDIA GPUs to domestic chips is driven by export control instability
33:26
China is seen as representing the future in some areas, which could challenge American exceptionalism

Chapters

How China Is Building AI Differently—Without Chasing AGI
00:00
Why China Embraced Open Source as National Strategy (and What’s Holding It Back)
12:12
Is Model Theft a Problem—or a Feature—of China’s AI Rise?
18:00
Why Compute, Not Data or Code, Is China’s Biggest Bottleneck Right Now
26:25
Can China’s Chip Breakthroughs Redefine Global Tech Norms?
29:45
When AI Is Just One Piece of a Much Bigger Tech Rivalry
33:26

Transcript

Speaker 3: Stop the world! Welcome to Stop the World. I'm David Wroe. Olivia Nelson: And I'm Olivia Nelson. Speaker 3: Liv, we're back with another TSD Summit Sessions today, and it's a doubleheader this week for our listeners. We had Dave working very, ...