U.S.-China AI Race Escalates + Chip Bans Aren’t Working + A Lesson From Nuclear Proliferation
The SpilloverShow Notes
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.
Submit Your Question For a Chance to Win a Copy of Sebastian Mallaby’s Book The Infinity Machine!
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
Want to keep up with The Spillover? Sign up to receive an email alert when new episodes are released!
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.
More from The Spillover
Brazil’s runoff is a dead heat, but markets are betting that Flávio Bolsonaro, son of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, will win and finally rein in the country’s debt. This week on The Spillover, Rebecca Patterson and CFR Senior Vice President Shannon O’Neil unpack why voters and investors want different things from Brazil’s leadership, and what this election could signal for Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, and the region at large.
With the 2026 U.S. midterm elections just weeks away, Rebecca Patterson and Veda Partners Cofounder Henrietta Treyz discuss an impending confrontation over the debt ceiling in the lame-duck session. They warn that a 2011-style standoff could unfold if political brinkmanship and a lack of serious effort to stabilize the country’s debt trajectory continue.
This week on The Spillover, hosts Sebastian Mallaby and Rebecca Patterson unpack what they got right—and wrong—in their forecasts over the course of the year so far, covering the “Fragile Four” economies, OpenAI’s funding crisis, the AI IPO race, the Iran war, and more.
This week on The Spillover, hosts Rebecca Patterson and Sebastian Mallaby are joined by Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, to discuss how the Federal Reserve has fallen behind the curve on inflation, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s task forces, and the role of AI in monetary policymaking.
This week on The Spillover, hosts Sebastian Mallaby and Rebecca Patterson sit down with author and historian Anne Applebaum to discuss Europe, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the escalating geopolitical headwinds the region faces.