White House AI Czar Warns: China Only 3-6 Months Behind US in AI Race

China is only 3-6 months behind US in AI, Trump official says

WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - China is three to six months behind the United States in artificial intelligence, White house AI and crypto czar David Sacks said Tuesday at an event in Washington, warning that excess U.S. AI regulation could damage American innovation in the industry. "China is not years and years behind us in AI. Maybe they're 3-6 months," said Sacks, speaking at the AWS summit in Washington. "It's a very close race." Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chris Reese Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

White House AI czar says China is only 3-6 months behind the US in AI, not years behind

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you. White House AI czar David Sacks has said that China isn't years behind the US when it comes to AI, but more like 3-6 months behind, and that the AI race is "very close". Sacks was speaking at the AWS Summit in Washington when the White House AI and crypto czar said: "China is not years and years behind us in AI. Maybe they're three to six months. It's a very close race". He also downplayed the issues of American AI chips being smuggled by bad actors, and raised concerns that regulating US AI too tightly could hurt growth, and cede the critical AI market to China. He said: "We talk about these chips like they could be smuggled in the back of a briefcase. That's not what they look like. These are server racks that are eight feet tall and weigh two tons. They don't walk out doors. It's very easy to basically verify that they're where they're supposed to be". We've seen President Trump and NVIDIA make agreements with other countries to use its AI GPUs in servers, with partnerships with the likes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia for new AI supercomputers and bleeding-edge AI chips. NVIDIA has been tweaking -- it seems 24/7 -- its AI GPUs, with its new Blackwell-based B40 expected to launch in the months ahead. B40 is said to move away from advanced packaging and HBM, and will use GDDR7 memory instead. However, on the AI czar and his comments regarding China only being 3-6 months behind in AI... well, when it comes to hardware we have China's Huawei which is the country's direct (and only) competitor (close) to NVIDIA. But in recent rumors, we've heard that Huawei's new Ascend 910C AI chip mass production has been delayed, as the AI chips have been reportedly overheating and just stop functioning altogether. If Huawei can't get AI chips out... and just working... then those 3-6 months behind turn into many years before the Chinese company can get any foothold in the market. Secondly, it's not just the AI chip but semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC is world-class, SMIC (based in China) is not. Thirdly, it's not just AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing, but also the ecosystem surrounding AI -- NVIDIA has spent a considerable amount of time building CUDA and so have millions of developers across the planet (including in China).

U.S. official warns China closing AI gap with America By Investing.com

Investing.com -- White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks stated that China is only three to six months behind the United States in artificial intelligence development. Sacks made these remarks Tuesday at the AWS summit in Washington, cautioning that excessive regulation of AI in the U.S. could harm American innovation in this field. "China is not years and years behind us in AI. Maybe they're 3-6 months," Sacks said during his speech. "It's a very close race." The White House official's assessment highlights the narrowing technological gap between the two global powers in the strategically important AI sector.