Shaun Rein on how China responded to the Trump and Biden era sanctions and tariffs

I believe in open and fair competition between the United States and China when it comes to AI.  I think it's amazing that DeepSeek and Alibaba both were able to create language learning models that were as good, if not better, than OpenAI's ChatGPT.  What I'm kind of sad about in the United States you've seen a lot of tech bros, the view DeepSeek's release as a Sputnik moment.  But instead of saying, "Let's outcompete the Chinese fairly, let's invest more in R&D, let's have more good minds on it," they're pushing Trump to try to put even more sanctions and even more expert controls on China.  You see Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, is saying, "We need to add even more export controls."  Alexander Wong, who's also the founder of a big AI company, has also said, "We need to slap more sanctions on China."

I think the reality is the Trump era, the Biden era, sanctions and tariffs have shot America in the foot.  If they hadn't launched such sanctions, China probably wouldn't have focused so much on indigenous innovation.

~ Shaun Rein, "Why China Brushes Off Trump's Tariffs," Thinkers Forum, March 1, 2025

Marc Benioff on the AI race

Sara Eisen: Does the U.S. have a leading edge in AI against China, Marc?

Marc Benioff: I think that both have different approaches right now...  I wouldn't say the U.S. has a significant leading edge.  You just saw one of the leading [generative AI] models, which was DeepSeek, emerge, but also now... Alibaba's as well and there's other models as well, and there's different approaches with chips.  So while there's U.S. chips that are very good and very competitive as we saw in the training of the DeepSeek model, there's different approaches with chips and... nobody has a monopoly on training chips or on inference chips.

~ Marc Benioff, "Ray Dalio and Salesforce’s Benioff on AI, trade wars and new world order," CNBC International Live, 21:15 mark, March 14, 2025

Ruchir Sharma on what is driving the rally in Chinese stocks

Xi Jinping is very aware that he needs the private sector to help grow.  He's facing the headwinds from the U.S., the uncertainty with the tariffs.  He needs the private sector now.  So he's trying to make the private sector more of an ally rather than the hostile attitude that he adopted a few years ago.  That's a change.

But so far, the rally has nothing to do with the stimulus.  It is very much a sentiment shift triggered by low valuations and the fact that DeepSeek has shifted the perception on China's tech prowess.

~ Ruchir Sharma, founder, Breakout Capital, "DeepSeek has shifted the perception on China's tech prowess," CNBC, February 26, 2025

Kim Iversen on AI lowering barriers to entry

What AI... really brings forward is the ability of the little guy to compete with the big guy.  And that's kind of what DeepSeek showed.  They're like, "We did this for a fraction of the money and we were able to compete with you."  AI, not just in the creation of your own AI, but even like you said with the creation of movies, for example.  The fact that a small team of creators can get together with like five people and create an incredible Hollywood blockbuster where normally that would take massive numbers of people, thousands of employees, millions upon millions of dollars to make a Hollywood blockbuster, and now that opens up to anybody to compete with these big businesses.

So the one really great change I see is that there seems to be a lot of monopolies in the United States with these big businesses.  They've dominated industries, it's hard for new people to break in, smaller companies to break in, and yet AI may be opening that path for anybody and everybody.  Much like the technology advancements that we experienced here with shows and broadcasting.  The fact that I'm able to do this and compete with mainstream news is incredible and even ten years ago wasn't even a real possibility, but now today it is.  The advancement is amazing.

Kim Iversen, "Are We Screwed? How China Outplayed the U.S. Overnight," The Kim Iverson Show, 14:40 mark, February 7, 2025

Charles Hugh Smith on the AI race, innovation and open societies

Charles Hugh Smith: A lot of people are saying, "Wait a minute, does this mean China has got the lead in AI?"  I don't think it's a state or governments-run option here to say, "We're going to control the world's AI."  I think the dominance here is which economy is more open, more transparent, more open to sharing information and is going to allow the greatest number of people to start innovating with these new tools.  And so that's really what it boils down to.

Adam Taggart: How weird would it be if that country were China.  It's just not historically, culturally, those are not adjectives that are used around China.

Smith: What's interesting is the whole world has an equal opportunity here.  There's systemic issues here.  It's not just the software or the hardware.  It's which economy, as a system, is more open, more transparent, more adaptable, more flexible and is going to give rewards to somebody in their garage famously that comes up with a product that people love.

~ Charles Hugh Smith, "Did China's DeepSeek Just Pop the AI Stock Bubble?," Thoughtful Money, January 27, 2025