U.S.-China AI Race Escalates + Chip Bans Aren’t Working + A Lesson From Nuclear Proliferation

This episode unpacks the evolving U.S.-China AI rivalry, the limits of technological export controls, and what’s really at stake as both countries race to shape the future of intelligence.

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Host:

Sebastian Mallaby, Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Guest:

Chris McGuire, Senior Fellow for China and Emerging Technologies, CFR

We discuss:

• How U.S. export controls on chips are slowing China’s AI progress, but not stopping it, as loopholes, smuggling and cloud access weaken enforcement.
• Why China’s progress is stronger than expected, with competing models only months behind the U.S.
• As Chris McGuire, CFR senior fellow, puts it: “Whoever has the better AI is going to have the offense-defense advantage in the cyber realm.” 
• Why compute and advanced chips are the real bottleneck.
• Why the “AI intelligence explosion” is overstated, with real-world deployment slowed by infrastructure, regulation, and human constraints.
• The tension between containing China and working with it on global AI safety and governance.

Mentioned on the Episode: 

Sebastian Mallaby, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence, Penguin Random House 

Chris McGuire, “The New AI Chip Export Policy to China: Strategically Incoherent and Unenforceable,” CFR.org

Chris McGuire, “Trump’s Reversal on AI Chips is a Historic Blunder,” The Washington Post 

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The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.