By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Nvidia’s earnings results bring into focus the geopolitical tensions surrounding artificial intelligence as the world’s two largest economies look to win the race for AI dominance, with the U.S. restricting sales of powerful AI chips to China. Joining us now, we’ve got Nina Schick, author and advisor specializing in AI, geopolitics, and power. Nina, it’s great to have you here with us. I know you say controlling AI is not just about the technology, it’s about writing the rules for the next century of global power. How does that inform your thinking on who the winners and losers to come out of this moment may be?
01:05 Nina Schick
Well, I think the first thing to say is that this is the most important geopolitical story of our time, of the 21st century, because traditionally technology has always been an accelerator of global power. But when we’re talking about actually artificial intelligence, when we’re talking about actually being able to create intelligence that is cheap and available like a commodity, well, that’s fundamentally different from any technology we’ve had in the past. And that’s why you see this talk of the AI war. And to be completely honest with you, even though all countries are starting to understand that there’s this new kind of geopolitical order being shaped by technology dominance, the two players in the race, and of course it sounds a bit hackneyed and cliche, but undoubtedly it is the United States and China. And that is going to be the story of the 21st century. It is the the competition for technology dominance between these two superpowers.
02:42 Speaker A
So, talk to me, Nina, and thank you for for that overview. If you if you talk to CEO Jensen Huang, he would say that the current work of the U.S. and the Trump administration to curb China’s excellence on AI is not the right approach. He sees the current chip curbs as something that could potentially benefit the likes of Huawei going forward. What is the right approach then? Uh if the Trump administration were to call you and ask for your input on the right approach to winning on AI, what would you say?
03:25 Nina Schick
Absolutely. So the first thing to say about the Trump administration is just how interesting it is since Trump 2.0 came into office, how much they’ve kind of identified AI and technology dominance as a priority for the administration. And of course, the export controls started in 2018. But we’ve seen how if you look at where each superpower, each has its Achilles heel. And I would say that for the United States, the Achilles heel is the lack of the industrial base which China has. We’ve already heard from your former guests how the infrastructure, the energy requirements, the kind of rare earth materials are absolutely essential to kind of scaling artificial intelligence. So if that is the US’s Achilles heel, the Achilles heel for China is compute. But of course, ever since these export controls have come into place in 2018, it’s kind of leading to this incubation of innovation in China that was kind of the deep seek moment, just because of how efficient Deep Seek, this AI lab which apparently came out of nowhere, was at running inference, you know, 96% more efficient than the kind of US labs were doing. So there is an argument that by enforcing these export controls, you are just incubating this extreme innovation. Just today, we’ve had news from Huawei, um, uh, and of course there’s also Baidu, that eventually, and by the way, that is the stated ambition of the Chinese government, that they will have semiconductor sovereignty. So this will continue to play out, but I think the fundamental thing is that each of the superpowers has its Achilles heel. For China, it’s still compute, um, and for the US, it’s its industrial base, starting with energy production.
06:18 Speaker A
And Nina, my guest host Steve has a question as well.
06:22 Steve
Hi, Nina. My question my question is, if it’s this duopoly between the US and China, where does this leave Europe and the rest of Asia? Or even Africa for that matter?
06:48 Nina Schick
It’s a great question. I think this is the new world order where the competition is between the two superpowers. And each of the other regions is going to become a swing state or be aligned with one of the superpowers. That’s why it was so interesting to see, uh, what President Trump did just the other week on his great tour of the Gulf, where he signed these mega deals with the UAE, with Saudi, with Qatar, you know, almost to the value of $3 trillion. All of those deals have to do with AI infrastructure, with selling AI services, including Nvidia services by the way, to the Gulf. So you see the kind of this great realigning of the Gulf with the United States. And you would think that Europe actually should be a third contender in this race, but actually they have a systemic disadvantage which neither the US nor China has, and that’s that it’s a block, right, of 27 countries. It’s very hard to have a cohesive industrial policy, very hard to have a cohesive um energy policy. And even though they have the talent and lots of capital, they cannot deploy as fast or on the scale that you’re seeing between the US and China. So right now, I say you see the US and China leading. Europe a little bit astray, also because it is an ally to the United States under the Trump administration. And really interesting moves where you see the entire Gulf now, thanks to the value of these tremendous deals being signed with the Trump administration, kind of lining up with the United States. And of course, that will have caused consternation in Beijing because Beijing has been doing this and for for a long time, you know, under the kind of the Belt and Road initiative, where they’ve had the foresight to understand that infrastructure is going to be a form of both hard and soft power going forward.
09:32 Speaker A
Nina, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much for that context.
09:37 Nina Schick
Thank you.