Azeem Azhar's Exponential View China’s catching up to US AI… Here’s why it won’t matter
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May 14, 2025 
Lennart Heim, a researcher at RAND Corporation specializing in AI and geopolitics, discusses why China's AI advancements won't eclipse the US's position. He emphasizes the crucial role compute power plays in AI development, detailing the economic impacts of training models. The conversation also covers the geopolitical dynamics of AI compute, debating the balance between centralized and decentralized resources. Finally, he touches on the importance of global collaboration in AI standards to navigate the complexities of technological competition.
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Compute Key to US AI Edge
- Compute capacity is the critical resource that gives the U.S. a sustained AI advantage over China.
- Winning depends not only on building competitive models but on access to and use of larger compute resources.
AI Compute Demand Exponentially Grows
- AI training compute demand doubles roughly every six months, far surpassing Moore's Law.
- This exponential increase drives AI capability advances by training bigger, more complex models.
Rise of Inference Compute
- Inference or test-time compute is rapidly growing as AI models become interactive and reason iteratively.
- This compute type is increasingly costly but crucial for advanced capabilities like step-by-step reasoning.