Against this backdrop, both Beijing and Washington have upped their support for domestic chip production to accelerate AI innovation. However, in an interview with Bloomberg and CNBC on Tuesday, which was republished by Business Insider, Schmidt said the US is way ahead of China.
“In the case of artificial intelligence, we are well ahead, two or three years probably of China, which in my world is an eternity,” Schmidt said. “I think we’re in pretty good shape.”
Schmidt served as Google’s CEO from 2001 until 2011 and remained its chairman until 2015. Following his departure, Schmidt has invested in various AI companies, including Anthropic. He also became the chairman of the Department of Defense’s Innovation Board in 2016 and chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence for three years.
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Schmidt said the US could win the AI race as long as it doesn’t screw up its lead. Since China is focused on dominating certain industries, he said, the US needs to compete with them and win.
At the start of 2024, China had approved over 40 AI models in a six-month period, including 14 new large language models approved for public use in a week’s span. Baidu, a search-engine giant referred to as “China’s Google,” is leading the pack.
Schmidt talked about four factors that contributed to his view that China is behind in the AI arms race.
Chip shortages
Schmidt said China is “struggling because of chips” and shortages.
In a separate interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Schmidt said China has been set back because the Trump and Biden administrations have restricted access to high-speed chips, particularly Nvidia chips.
“They’re certainly angry about that,” Schmidt said.
The chips serve as a crucial component in the effort to scale AI. Tensions between the US and China have resulted in the US government pushing to produce semiconductors domestically. In November 2023, the Department of Commerce implemented the Advanced Computing Chips Rule making it harder for China to import advanced AI chips from American manufacturers.
In March, the Biden administration considered imposing sanctions on several Chinese semiconductor firms linked to Huawei.
Schmidt thinks there’s less Chinese material to train AI models with
Schmidt also said on CNBC that there’s not as much Chinese material available to train large language models. Since English dominates the internet, research papers, and books that large language models train on, he believes English provides a larger pool of information to learn from.
“That’s why English is so strong in these large language models,” Schmidt said.
Additionally, most training data is in English, he said, which could lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in other languages.
Reduced funding
Schmidt said that China is also facing a huge reduction in foreign investment and at-risk venture capital. Meanwhile, the US has exploded in these areas, he said.
China’s economy has declined over the past few years and the country continues to face problems with deflation.
In November 2023, it suffered its first foreign investment deficit as tensions with the US continued and other Western countries leaned away from business involvement.
Focusing on the wrong areas
The former Google CEO said that China is focused on building for-profit application companies. He said some may ultimately be successful but they’re not platform-focused.
“Three or four of the top apps in America are, in fact, of Chinese origin,” Schmidt said. “But at the moment, the leadership is US.”
Though apps like TikTok have been successful, some industry experts think China is lagging when it comes to foundational AI models, CNBC reported.
“We should be very proud to be here,” Schmidt said. “America has invented this future and this particular future, the one which is AI and quantum and the other technologies that people are talking about. We have a shot of actually dominating the world for the next 10 or 20 years if we do it right.”