Sacks predicts China decoupling will become a bipartisan issue in the 2020 election.
“Decoupling from China is gonna be a bipartisan issue now. I think both candidates now will be well, Trump is gonna is gonna run blaming China for for what happened,”
Sacks argues the US should not depend on China for antibiotics, medicines, or PPE critical to survival.
“It doesn't really make sense for us to be dependent on China for our antibiotics, for our medicines, for our PPE, for any of these products that are important for national survival.”
Sacks says DeepSeek moved perceptions of China's AI lag from six-to-twelve months to three-to-six months.
“if you had asked most people in the industry a few weeks ago how far behind is China on AI models, they would say six to twelve months.”
Sacks says people would have been surprised a Chinese company released the second reasoning model after OpenAI.
“if you had said to people a few weeks ago that the second company to release a reasoning model along the lines of o one would be a Chinese company, I think people would have been surprised by that.”
Sacks argues open-sourcing makes strategic sense for DeepSeek as a Chinese company trying to catch up.
“And so if you're if you're behind and you're trying to catch up, then open source is a strategy that actually really makes sense for you.”
Sacks argues selling some chips to China takes market share from Huawei, preventing its dominance.
“And what Huawei wants is for all American chips to be banned in China so they can dominate that huge market for themselves.”
Sacks frames data center decision as binary: countries will choose American or Chinese technology.
“Every sovereign country that can afford them is gonna have data centers. Is that gonna be American technology or Chinese technology?”
“I just saw an article that said that China was rejecting the h 200, so apparently, they don't want them.”
Sacks cites 83% AI optimism in China versus only 39% in the US as America's weak spot.
“If you look at AI optimism, in China versus The United States, it's 83% of people in China are optimistic about AI, only 39% in The US.”
“And it's sort of the perfect export control because there's only one company that makes these machines.”
Sacks notes 83% of Chinese people are AI optimistic about benefits outweighing harms versus only 39% in the US.
“Eighty three percent of people in China believe the benefits will outweigh the harms, they're AI optimistic. In The US, it's only 39%.”
Sacks cites Stanford survey showing 83% AI optimism in China versus 39% in US as concerning competitiveness indicator.
“If they said the harms outweighed gains, they're an AI pessimist. Well, in China, 83% of the population are AI optimists. In The US, that number is only 39%.”
Sacks warns against banning AI for kids when China is incorporating it into K-12 education.
“In China, they're incorporating AI into k through 12 education. Are we gonna ban it for our kids and teenagers? I think that'd be a terrible mistake.”
Sacks predicts Chinese AI models will have cyber capabilities within approximately six months.
“It's just it's really important to understand that the Chinese models are gonna have these capabilities within approximately six months.”
“I've been saying for months that we're on a shot clock. We have to do smart things. We can't just slow everything down because that will not slow down the Chinese.”
Sacks says China is typically nine months behind US AI models but can catch up faster on specific breakthroughs.
“I believe them because, look, the the Chinese have been, I'd say, nine months behind our models, plus or minus three months depending on capability.”
Sacks asserts Chinese GLM model now matches currently available OpenAI and Anthropic models in capability.
“So we now have a Chinese open weight model that is as good as the currently available models from OpenAI and Anthropic.”
Sacks argues that regulatory restrictions on open-source AI models would be ineffective because Chinese labs would continue developing advanced models regardless.
“Restrictions that kneecap open models would do nothing to stop Chinese labs from shipping the next Kimi.”
Sacks recounts Dario's argument that having thousands of AI agents versus China's dozens would ensure US dominance.
“And if we have thousands or millions of those and China has only dozens or a 100, whatever, then we're going to win everything.”
Sacks notes Dario's argument for AI advantage over China contradicts current data center bans.
“And if we have thousands or millions of those and China has only dozens or a 100, whatever, then we're going to win everything. And that was the whole argument.”
Sacks says Hugging Face was forced to use Chinese AI models for cyber defense because American model guardrails blocked them.
“They're being forced to turn to Chinese models for cyber defense because the guardrails have prevented them from having the latest and greatest American models.”