The US-China AI Battle is About Economics, Not Technology
[Opinion] Economic strength is the true AI war, technological prowess is merely one battle
Good Evening from Taipei,
Chinese AI models are the hottest topic in tech this week. Moonshot AI topped the headlines with its Kimi K3 model, followed soon after by Alibaba’s Qwen 3.8-Max.
They’re generally viewed as technological developments.
I see them as economic developments. And over the long term I believe we need to spend more time looking at the US-China AI battle through the lens of economic rivalry.
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First, I really loved “Analogical Sock”. I thought that was so clever.
Second, this is quite a profound insight that I’m grateful,for. Fundamentally, token production will inevitably then come down to ownership of the means of production … in which case the most efficient ownership model will be the cheapest and most extractive. So that becomes a much bigger battle, I think, between the economic model driving that ownership of production. Where does profit sit when the national interest is to maximise efficiency? And if profit is separated from the task, because the interest outweighs the need of the individual, what next? It feels to me that in its own way, tech as you describe it now mirrors the crossroads facing our wider economic and political societies as we face huge challenges our existing models seem unable to resolve. Forgive me if this is a little wooly, I’m just thinking out loud. Thanks for the piece.
Thanks for this Tim. If I can just ask: are you essentially saying that better chips = more efficient corporates = stronger economy = USA wins again?