In this panel from the 2025 Hill & Valley Forum, tech leaders Kevin Weil (Chief Product Officer, OpenAI), Ruth Porat (President and Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google), and Emil Michael (nominee for Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering) discuss America's AI leadership and the strategic imperative of maintaining it against China's growing capabilities. The conversation spans OpenAI's plans to release open-source models one generation behind their frontier systems, Google's breakthrough achievements with AlphaFold, and the critical infrastructure challenges - particularly energy production and modernizing the electrical grid - that must be addressed to ensure continued U.S. technological dominance.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:30) Discussion of America's technological leadership in AI
(01:30) Kevin Weil on ChatGPT's exponential growth to 500 million weekly users and rapid capability improvements
(05:13) Ruth Porat on AlphaFold's Nobel Prize and revolutionizing scientific discovery
(07:43) Kevin on how AI partnerships with national labs are accelerating scientific research
(09:12) Discussion of DeepSeek and the strategy for countering Chinese open-source AI soft power
(12:15) Concerns about U.S. venture capital funding Chinese AI companies
(14:18) Emil Michael on reforming Pentagon acquisition to better leverage commercial AI technology
(16:17) Building a risk-taking culture in government and celebrating success rather than punishing failure
(19:00) Ruth Porat on America's energy infrastructure challenges and Google's policy recommendations
(21:05) OpenAI's Project Stargate and $500 billion investment in U.S. AI infrastructure
(23:51) Final thoughts on maintaining U.S.-Silicon Valley cooperation and technological competitiveness
