ChinaTalk

How could AI change the global balance of power? What could the US and allies do to preserve national moats? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed the CEO of Scale AI, Alex Wang. In a blog post announcing Scale’s $1 billion fundraising success, Alex wrote that Scale is aiming to grow into the world's data foundry for AI. Alex grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with two physicist parents who worked in...

Is Cold War II upon us? What should America do to prevent it from becoming a hot war?  To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Dmitri Alperovitch. Dmitri emigrated from Russia in 1994 at age 13. He co-founded the leading cybersecurity startup Crowdstrike, and has spent the past four years running his new think tank, the Silverado Policy Accelerator.  He's also the author of the new book World on the Bri...

Jake Newby is the author of Concrete Avalanche, a free newsletter about music from China. Today, he's here to play you some of his favorite tracks from 2024 thus far — including everything from psychedelic rock to rare Uyghur folk, and from Beijing kawaii core to Tibetan Buddhist chants mixed with footwork. 00:00:00 'Narcissus' Death' — Backspace (read more) 00:05:38 '红喷泉' — Pepper Heart (read...

Are politicians and actors two sides of the same coin? Can you become a better public speaker by studying soliloquies? What can Shakespeare teach us about the nature of power? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Eliot Cohen: SAIS professor, military historian, and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He is also the author of The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and F...

One does not simply invade Taiwan — but George Marshall once thought long and hard about it. In 1944, in the middle of the island-hopping campaign, American war planners set their sights on Japanese-controlled Formosa. What did the American invasion plan look like? Why did Marshall decide to go another route? What lessons do this and other amphibious invasions hold for Taiwan’s current force postu...

Taiwan’s government agencies are battered by 5 million cyberattacks every day. China is holding invasion drills at a replica of Taiwan’s presidential palace in Inner Mongolia. Last week, the PLA openly rehearsed an encirclement of Taiwan in so-called “punishment drills.” What happened to deterrence in the Taiwan Strait? Can the status quo be saved? To discuss strategies for avoiding WWIII, ChinaTa...

Good AI is good and bad AI is bad, but how do lawmakers tell the difference? Will AI bring the world together or balkanize the internet beyond repair? Why do governments even need cloud computing anyway? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Pablo Chavez, a fellow at CNAS and former Vice President of Google Cloud's Public Policy division, as well as the inestimable investing tycoon Kevin Xu. Xu, forme...

Nathan Lambert of the Interconnects substack and Allen Institute joins for a roundup where we get into: What DC should understand about the Bay Area AI engineer psyche What GPT4o and Google's AI Dev Day mean for the future of AI OpenAI's model spec, and exit, voice, and loyalty in the leading labs Outtro music: Scarlett Johansson's The Moon Song Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...

We're taking one out of the archives! Douglas Irwin is a Dartmouth professor and the author of Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy. On this episode, Irwin provides an overview to the history of U.S. trade policy from the 18th century to the modern day, highlighting significant legislation as well as the formation of important intergovernmental organizations that have sprung up alo...

Brad Setser of CFR talks Biden's new tariffs! Earlier podcast deep dive on Chinese EV policy: ChinaTalk: Why Chinese EVs Will Take Over the World on Apple Podcasts Earlier podcast on the deep history of US trade policy: ChinaTalk: Tarriffs, taxes, and trade: Doug Irwin on ChinaEconTalk on Apple Podcasts Brad's paper: Power and Financial Interdependence (ifri.org) Outtro Music: Golden Earring's Rad...

Charles Clancy is the CTO of MITRE, an American not-for-profit organization managing federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) supporting various US government agencies in defense, healthcare, national security, and cybersecurity fields, among others. In this interview, we discuss: What is MITRE and how does it support national science & technology strategy How China threatens Ame...

TSMC is taking on Arizona. How's it going? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Viola Zhou, journalist at Rest of World. She has published pieces on Foxconn's quest to make iPhones in India and most recently, a gripping feature about the cultural challenges that TSMC is facing trying to manufacture semiconductors in the USA. Throughout her story, we get a peek into a world of rigid hierarchies, Ameri...

India’s elections are underway! What does the future hold for the world’s largest democracy? Will the election results impact India-China relations? What about India-US relations? To discuss, ChinaTalk interviewed Dr. Raja Mohan, Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Co-hosting today is James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj. We get into:...

Ryan Takeshita is the Chief Global Editor at PIVOT, a new media outlet in Japan focused on the emerging startup scene. We get into: A stroll through recent economic history leading to today's 'boom times' Why more people are looking to leave traditional occupations for insurgent firms Challenges around demographics and immigration Outtro Music: Idol by Yaosobi https://open.spotify.com/track/1hAloW...

To learn about Japan’s new economic national security policy, export controls, chip policy, lessons from history, and even space policy, we interviewed Kazuto Suzuki. Suzuki-san is a professor at the University of Tokyo. He serves as an advisor to Japan’s Ministry of the Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) as well as advising Japan’s space program. He served on the UN Security Council's Iran Sanct...

Just minutes after the Taiwan earthquake yesterday, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge, Jon of Asianometry and yours truly had a brief hang where we got into: Intel's process progress and rocky financial road ahead Reflections out of GTC Jensen's galaxy brain Photo of the woman who saved Intel, Dr. Ann Kelleher, General Manager of Foundry Technology Development. O...

Straight from Tokyo, Japan: an exclusive with Amb. Rahm Emanuel. Before his current posting as US ambassador to Japan, Rahm served as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton, multiple terms in the US House of Representatives, Obama’s first chief of staff, and the mayor of Chicago. If nothing else, you can count on his gloves-off, no-holds-barred approach to politics — and he’s been no different when it c...

Biotech. What is it? Why should you care? Does biotech really matter for national security? What are China’s biotech ambitions? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Jason Kelly, the Chair and Vice Chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, a publicly traded firm that provides a horizontal platform for cell programming. Mic...

Is Congress for real this time? To discuss the US domestic politics of the dramatic rollout and broader social, national, and geopolitical implications of the House's passage of a bill that would force Bytedance to divest from TikTok US, Ben Smith of Semafor joins the podcast. Outtro music: Olivia Rodrigo - Deja Vu 【Sped Up & reverb】 (youtube.com) The Platters - Only You - Lyrics - YouTube Learn...

How do you stand up an effective national AI project? Is the world prepared for the Reformation-level societal change AI could bring? Matt Clifford, according to Politico Britain’s most powerful tech adviser, joins ChinaTalk to discuss! He served as Prime Minister Sunak's sherpa for the UK AI Summit, chairs ARIA, the UK's answer to DARPA, and co-founded Entrepreneur First, a startup incubator with...

Chinese Doomscroll, which faithfully records happenings from the wild west that is Weibo (China’s Twitter/X equivalent), won the ChinaTalk award for best China-focussed Substack on 2023. Today we have on the brain behind the newsletter: Molly, who’s been doomscrolling for us since early 2023. We discuss: Why Weibo keeps Molly up at night; Chinese elementary school kids’ academic prowess; How socia...

How can AI change diplomacy? To discuss the State Department’s options for AI integration, we interviewed the State Department's Deputy Chief Data and AI Officer, Garrett Berntsen. He served as an officer during two tours in Afghanistan and recently rotated off the NSC. He's optimistic diplomacy can be more effective with comprehensive, timely, and accurate data-driven analysis, and that AI will b...

Why can India design chips with the best of them but has completely failed to develop fabs, much less a broader electronics industry? To discuss, I have on Pranay Kotasthane, former chip designer at TI and Qualcomm who now works at the Takshashila Institution and is the author of the new book When the Chips are Down. Chris Miller of Chip War cohosts. We get into: How the political economy of techn...

What does it take to train a frontier model? What's the know-how, the secret sauce that makes firms lets OpenAI and Deepmind push the limits of what's possible? How much are Chinese firms benefitting from western open source, and in the long term is it possible for western labs to maintain an edge? The hosts of the excellent Latent Space podcast, Alessio Fanelli of Decibel VC and Shawn Wang of Smo...

Matt Pottinger reported for years out of China, served as a US Marine Corps intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, and held several senior roles on Trump's NSC , concluding his time in the White House as the Deputy National Security Advisor. Today, Matt chairs the China Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. In this interview, we discuss: How Matt expects a second Trump a...