Sebastian Mallaby: The AI Race Nobody Can Win, Foreign Affairs Interview [video]
In a Foreign Affairs interview, Sebastian Mallaby discusses the global AI race, arguing that the intense competition between the US and China is creating a dynamic where neither side can achieve a definitive victory, leading to potential risks and instability.
Background
- Sebastian Mallaby is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Power Law," a history of venture capital. He writes about tech geopolitics.
- This interview argues the U.S.-China AI competition is "a race nobody can win" — both sides are forced into massive spending on chips, data centers, and energy with no clear endpoint.
- Key tension: U.S. export controls on advanced chips (e.g., Nvidia's H100, banned for China) aim to slow China's AI, but risk accelerating Chinese self-sufficiency and hurting American companies' revenues.
- The thesis: AI isn't winner-take-all; having the best model doesn't guarantee dominance, and runaway investment could be economically destabilizing.
- Prior context: Biden's 2022-2023 AI chip export controls; China developing domestic alternatives (Huawei's Ascend chips); the debate over whether decoupling from China is feasible for U.S. tech.