内容来源：https://www.theverge.com/policy/856815/jake-sullivan-interview-ai-chips-nvidia-trump

内容总结：

前白宫国安顾问警告：对华芯片出口松动或削弱美国AI竞争优势

在近期接受科技媒体The Verge的专访中，美国总统拜登任内的前国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文对特朗普政府放宽对华高端人工智能芯片出口限制的政策表达了深切忧虑。他认为，此举短期虽为美国芯片企业带来订单，长期却将助力中国获得关键计算资源，最终损害美国的技术领先地位与国家安全。

沙利文指出，中国在AI竞赛中的主要瓶颈并非资金、能源或人才，正是高端芯片。特朗普政府允许英伟达向中国出售其高端芯片H200，无异于“给中国的一份礼物”，直接填补了其关键短板。他警告，中国企业将得以利用美国芯片，在海外建设数据中心，向全球推广其AI模型，从而挑战美国的技术主导地位。

他以特斯拉在中国电动车市场的经历为例，指出美国企业为短期利益进入中国市场，最终往往面临技术转移、激烈竞争后被排挤出局的结局。沙利文认为，英伟达等公司正重蹈覆辙，为获取中国市场而忽略长期战略风险。

沙利文透露，在拜登任内，其团队曾进行模拟推演，但当时“未能预想到出口管制会被实际撤销”。他对当前局势表示意外，并批评特朗普政府在四个方面危及美国AI优势：放宽对华芯片出口、在AI安全与标准制定上放任自流、推行不利吸引全球顶尖人才的政策，以及大幅削减基础研究预算。

尽管承认现政府重视AI革命并延续了部分生物安全政策，沙利文总体评价消极。他强调，任何行业过度捆绑单一政党都是危险的，AI产业应保持与跨党派政治力量的良性关系，而非进行政治投机。

对于中国近期发布的深度求索（DeepSeek）模型，沙利文认为其宣传意义大于实际威胁，恰恰反证了中国对高端计算资源的渴求及出口管制的必要性。他最后表示，美国应对AI能源挑战的出路在于电网升级与清洁能源，而非依赖外部石油资源。

中文翻译：

您好，欢迎订阅《监管者》——这是一份为The Verge订阅者准备的通讯，聚焦于科技巨头、政府强权以及二者碰撞所引发的重大范式变革。您尚未订阅？新年伊始，何不犒赏自己一番？

杰克·沙利文对特朗普摧毁其人工智能外交政策感到震怒

拜登的国家安全顾问曾试图阻止英伟达向中国出售高端芯片。在接受The Verge的广泛访谈中，沙利文预测了特朗普逆转该政策的后果。

2022年，时任拜登总统国家安全顾问、在白宫外交政策团队中举足轻重的杰克·沙利文，在战情室组织了一场跨部门规划推演：中美之间的人工智能军备竞赛，从贸易战到真实战争，甚至可能包括通用人工智能（AGI）的到来，所有可能的情境与结果会是怎样？联邦政府又将如何应对？

那次模拟的细节与结果属于机密。但在周日，我与沙利文交谈时询问他，是否至少能描述一种推演结果：他们是否曾模拟过这样一种情境——驱动外交政策的是人工智能行业的利润诉求，而非政府？

他坦率的回答令我惊讶。“我承认，我们当时确实没有考虑到我们实际上会撤销出口管制措施的可能性。”

沙利文现在是哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院的教授，他明确支持人工智能和创新。但他思考人工智能的方式带着前国家安全顾问的烙印：将其视为获取对华等对手地缘政治优势的手段。他当时的决定是，对美国公司获准向中国出售的高端芯片实施严格管制，这延续了一项可追溯至冷战时期的政策：不向美国的外国敌人出售高端技术。尽管科技公司强烈反对，沙利文曾自信地认为，一旦拜登离任，他的政策仍将维持。他在2025年1月接受彭博社采访时表示，“大体上”科技公司的CEO们接受了这些出口管制的必要性，他并不担心即将上任的特朗普总统会与他们达成交易来放松贸易限制。

但当然，这正是后来发生的事情。过去一年里，英伟达CEO黄仁勋慢慢赢得了特朗普的好感，最终说服他允许英伟达向中国市场出售其性能排名第二的H200芯片，而美国政府从中抽取25%的利润。随着美国最先进的芯片涌入一个以公然窃取知识产权闻名的市场，沙利文深感震惊：人工智能公司正在将美国的技术优势，实实在在地拱手送给一个公开宣称要超越美国的国家。尽管人工智能军备竞赛常被比作冷战时期的核军备竞赛，但有一个关键区别。政府资助核研究的主要目的是国防，而科技公司资助人工智能研究的主要目的是赚取巨额利润。“也许这是我缺乏想象力，”沙利文承认道。

在下文中，我与沙利文就特朗普人工智能政策的现状、英伟达应从特斯拉在华失败中吸取的教训、如果深度求索（DeepSeek）在他仍是国家安全顾问时发布他会作何反应，以及——鉴于美国令人震惊地绑架委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的事件才过去一天——特朗普政府是否会以人工智能数据中心能耗增加为借口，攫取委内瑞拉的石油工业（他的评估是：“我觉得他们干得出来”）等问题进行了广泛对话。

本周The Verge要闻：

• 《政府失灵之年》，劳伦·法伊纳：2025年是联邦政府与消费者保护机制被掏空的一年。
• 《言论自由的大倒退》，费利佩·德拉霍兹：数字威权主义时代扼住了美国言论自由的咽喉。
• 《有人因押注马杜罗被捕而大赚一笔》，特伦斯·奥布莱恩：一个全新账户在Polymarket上进行了时机可疑的押注。
• 《网络中立性一度回归，却又消失》，史蒂维·博尼菲尔德：联邦通信委员会正对美国宽带规则大开杀戒，尽管一些州正在加强监管。
• 《2025年好莱坞拥抱人工智能却一无所获》，查尔斯·普利亚姆-摩尔：这项技术主导了娱乐话题，但尚无一部剧集或电影能展现人工智能的潜力。
• 《以……虚无之名杀戮》，莎拉·全：政治暴力已变得难以解读，政治与语言也越来越如此。
• 消费科技：《特朗普手机再次错过发布日期》，多米尼克·普雷斯顿：说好的“今年晚些时候”发布呢？

“短期内，他们能获得更多订单。长期来看，他们是在助长一个将逐渐挤压他们生存空间的竞争对手。”

本次访谈经过编辑，以精简内容并提升清晰度。

蒂娜·阮： 多年来您一直警告中国在人工智能竞赛中超越美国的风险。但随后特朗普上台，全面撤销了拜登的人工智能行政命令，使美国的人工智能政策更偏向产业界。国会和白宫的共和党人会辩称，解除贸易和开发方面的管制同样能达到在人工智能竞赛中击败中国的目标。您对此有何看法？

杰克·沙利文： 嗯，我们在拜登政府期间做出的最重要举措之一，就是对向中国出售用于训练前沿人工智能模型的先进芯片实施出口管制。而特朗普总统现在允许出售其中部分芯片，特别是H200，这简直是对中国的馈赠。中国目前的主要制约因素不是电力、不是资金、也不是人才，而是芯片。我们现在基本上是在帮他们填补这个缺口。在我看来，这在中美人工智能前沿竞赛中，只会对中国有利，别无其他可能。

而且这影响不仅限于前沿领域，因为中国的算力制约也影响到他们向全球提供模型服务的能力——成为世界运行所依赖的人工智能支柱。在此决定之前，中国在境外建设数据中心遇到困难，因为他们无法生产足够的自有芯片来实现。现在，他们可以让腾讯、阿里巴巴等公司利用美国芯片建设数据中心，向世界其他地区提供中国模型。

我看不出这如何能在任何方面符合美国的利益——尤其是按照大卫·萨克斯和唐纳德·特朗普所设定的、希望世界运行在美国技术栈之上的标准。

几天前，美国宣布将允许台积电将美国制造的设备进口到其中国工厂。我相信他们的论点是：“哦，我们基本上是在用美国技术在中国制造芯片。”

总的来说，我的观点是，无论是半导体制造设备还是最先进的人工智能芯片，实施出口管制对于保护美国国家安全、提升美国在人工智能领域相对于中国的优势都是必要的。而且我不认为这会给美国带来长期的商业损失，因为对这些设备和芯片的需求如此巨大，美国公司在世界其他地区将拥有不断增长的市场，无论是英伟达还是美国的芯片设备制造商。所以，我不接受那种认为我们必须允许他们向中国出售一些最先进的技术，以确保他们能获得足够回报来维持公司增长的说法。

举个例子：英伟达在2022年反对我们实施的出口管制，并说，如果你们对A100和H100芯片实施这些出口管制，我们将损失大量收入。那时，我记得英伟达的市值还不到4000亿美元。快进三年：这些管制措施一直存在，而英伟达的市值现在已达到数万亿美元。

它现在是世界上最有价值的公司。

没错。为什么呢？因为中国以外的需求如此巨大，并且在未来很长一段时间内仍将如此。所以，我对本届政府愿意用我认为的长期代价来换取非常短期的商业利益深感忧虑。过去几十年的历史充满了美国公司希望进入中国市场以获取即时利润，结果后来发现，一旦中国掌握了技术并投入资金，这些公司最终会逐渐被挤出市场的案例。

我的意思是，电动汽车行业基本上就是这样，对吧？

正是如此。当初的想法是，特斯拉和埃隆·马斯克认为，让我在中国市场站稳脚跟。与中国政府搞好关系。这将使我接触到超过十亿人口，最终将有利于特斯拉。

从逻辑上讲，这有一定道理。但政策的生命不在于逻辑，而在于经验。经验一再告诉我们，实际情况是：我们进入中国市场。中国人会想方设法利用美国在那里的存在——无论是通过技术转让、直接窃取还是残酷竞争——最终实现超越，然后将美国的技术或产品从他们的市场中驱逐出去。我们在电动汽车领域看到了这种情况。我认为我们最终也会在先进人工智能计算技术领域看到这种情况，因为中国决心已定——并且多年来，早在这些出口管制措施出台之前，其最高层就明确表示——他们打算结束对美国芯片技术的依赖，并试图成为全球范围内美国芯片技术的主要竞争对手。

“他们可以让腾讯、阿里巴巴等公司利用美国芯片建设数据中心，向世界其他地区提供中国模型。”

那么您是说，向中国销售芯片的公司自身也会看到长期的负面影响？

我的观点是，短期内，他们能获得更多订单。长期来看，他们是在助长一个将逐渐挤压他们生存空间的竞争对手。我无法对未来做出精确预测，我也不在那些公司的董事会会议室里，无法确切看到正在发生什么。但我只想说，我们已经看到太多太多公司认为这将是一个长期的成功故事，结果最终发现他们进入中国市场损害了他们长期的能力。

现在，我要特别指出一点。我认为英伟达正在审视全球芯片需求，并担心其在中国以外面临竞争：谷歌的TPU、亚马逊的Trainium，以及其他可能进入GPU市场的参与者。因此它在想，我们该怎么办？他们对这一威胁的部分回应——特别是考虑到未来一些其他超大规模云服务商可能不再采购英伟达芯片——是认为：我们需要中国市场。我理解这种逻辑。我最终质疑这是否会对英伟达奏效。但我确信的是，从我们美国的国家安全和国家利益角度来看，允许英伟达向中国出售这些先进芯片对美国不利。

我读了您去年接受《时代》杂志的采访，您提到在白宫期间，您曾主持过一场关于中美人工智能竞赛的战情室模拟。在您能谈论的范围内，你们是否模拟过私营部门的利益压倒政府利益的情境？

我承认，我们当时确实没有考虑到我们实际上会撤销出口管制措施的可能性。我们推演的情境是假设出口管制政策会持续下去。也许这是我缺乏想象力，但鉴于看到特朗普的第一届政府——他们实际上推行了一项与拜登政府在我们任内大力建立并扩展的政策相一致的政策——我没想到这届政府上台后会做出这些举动。坦率地说，这让我有些意外。我认为这不仅让特朗普政府的批评者感到意外，也让国会中许多他的支持者、共和党人感到震惊，他们看到特朗普政府沿着这些路线采取行动时都惊呆了。

既然您现在已是普通公民，您能否推演一下这种情境的结果？

现在有几件事让我深感忧虑。我们刚刚谈到了芯片管制问题，既涉及芯片本身，也涉及制造芯片的设备。

第二件让我担心的事是私营部门。私营部门的许多方面正在对特朗普政府说，完全退出安全和一致性问题的监管游戏。我们想要一个无监管、完全自由放任、放任自流的方式。这已经反映在特朗普政府的公开声明和公共政策中。我担心我们最终可能陷入这样一种境地：中国主导了关于标准的全球讨论，而美国几乎缺席。我认为这是另一个中国可能实际寻求获得优势的领域，以成为全球主导性的人工智能参与者，而美国却部分地应私营部门的要求置身事外，他们说，嘿，政府不应该参与这些关于标准、监管、安全之类的问题。

第三件让我担心的领域是人才问题以及美国吸引全球顶尖人才的能力。本届政府正在采取一系列措施，竖起“不欢迎”的牌子。这将使我们未来在人工智能领域吸引最优秀的工程师和最杰出的人才变得更加困难。我认为这也会让我们处于劣势。

最后一个领域是：美国的长期创新优势一直建立在基础研究之上，而本届政府正在大幅削减基础研究预算。我认为这是有问题的，因为如果你完全依赖私营部门进行所有创新，他们可以做出惊人的成就，我们的人工智能公司已经做到了，我高度尊重他们取得的突破。但你同样需要大学的研究，需要国家科学基金会的资助，这些研究寻求的不是商业优势，而是非常基础的科学突破。正是这类研究最终会带来最伟大的革命。削减那部分资金，完全依赖基本上就是大型科技公司来承担创新工作——我认为从美国的角度来看是有问题的。这破坏了我们几十年来屡试不爽的成功模式。

我关注的重点之一是特朗普与大型科技公司的交易主义，以及他为了给这些公司提供巨大的监管便利而希望从人工智能公司那里得到什么回报。您看到OpenAI的领导人向支持他及其候选人的MAGA超级政治行动委员会捐款。现在特朗普要求他们防止“觉醒人工智能”，并攻击科罗拉多州防止算法歧视的做法。您对人工智能行业本身变得党派化有何看法？

我认为任何行业穿上某个政党的“球衣”都是危险的。当我担任国家安全顾问时，我努力与所有主要前沿人工智能公司的领导人保持良好的关系。我认为我做到了这一点，尽管媒体广泛报道政府与其中许多公司之间存在紧张关系。我认为政府高级官员建立良好关系、理解这些公司的立场很重要。在我看来，这些公司是美国的国家资产。我们拥有世界上最尖端的技术公司是件好事，但美国政府确保有适当的法规、规范和护栏，既保护美国人的安全，也保护我们的国家安全，这是正确且恰当的。

如果整个行业决定全力押注一届政府或一个政党，或者与一届政府达成政治和金融交易，我担心这最终会侵蚀美国最大的优势之一，即我们没有像其他国家那样出现私营部门与政府纠缠不清的情况并因此遭受损失。因此，我希望科技行业能从长远考虑，认识到与各派政治力量保持良好关系的必要性，并且不要试图对美国政治的走向进行豪赌，因为我们任何人都无法准确预测。

那么，这有点假设性，但如果您在深度求索（DeepSeek）发布时仍是国家安全顾问，您会作何反应？

我认为中国政府实际上在炒作深度求索的发布中扮演了角色，目的是通过他们的宣传，持续不断地——遗憾的是，某种程度上是有效地——向西方舆论传递一个信息，基本上是说：抵抗是徒劳的。你们的出口管制行不通。放弃吧。整个芯片战略并未成功。这就是他们试图做的。这完全是胡说八道。

您知道我们怎么知道这是胡说八道吗？如果我仍然是国家安全顾问，我会抓住一切机会指出这一点：深度求索的CEO本人一再表示，他们的主要制约因素是芯片。他们的主要制约因素是算力。自去年年初发布以来，让他们难以按照自己希望的速度继续前进的原因，正是他们无法获得高端的美国GPU。特朗普总统现在正在让他们更容易获得这些芯片。

我会强调，关于这对美国算力优势意味着什么，炒作多于现实。事实上，深度求索的发布，在某种程度上，强化了对高端GPU实施有效、强制执行，并在某些情况下扩大美国出口管制的必要性。

“我认为任何行业穿上某个政党的‘球衣’都是危险的。”

您认为特朗普政府在与中国的AI竞赛中，有没有做对什么事情？

首先，我认为他们高度重视我们正在经历的人工智能革命的重要性。我认为他们正确地认识到这是一个极其重要的时刻。他们在高层政策上给予了大量关注。他们没有忽视它。我认为他们做出的选择并不好，但我很高兴看到他们重视并优先处理这个问题。

第二，他们基本上放弃了安全议程。我认为这是错误的，历史将证明这是错误的。但《人工智能行动计划》确实在一个领域延续了拜登政府的做法，那就是关于生物强化风险的安全问题：人工智能与生物武器可能以危害美国人民及世界各地人民安全的方式结合的风险。所以我认为这对他们来说也是一件好事。此外，还有一些有趣的倡议，比如“硅谷和平”（Pax Silica），旨在与美国的一些朋友和伙伴在芯片技术、人工智能科学与技术的其他方面进行合作。我认为这项工作很有价值，应该继续下去，我希望看到未来进一步加大与欧洲、亚洲及其他地区盟友、朋友和伙伴的接触。

但（总的来说），我认为本届政府采取的措施削弱了美国的创新优势，增加了中国获得先进计算能力的机会，并侵蚀了美国在成为全球人工智能领导者所必需的标准制定方面的领导作用。所以，恐怕我没有什么好消息可以讲，尽管我认为其中一些措施值得赞扬。

鉴于局势变化迅速，我只有一个关于委内瑞拉的问题，但我想把它与人工智能数据中心和能源消耗的背景联系起来。国际能源署预测，到2030年，由于人工智能数据中心的需求，美国的总能源消耗将上升10%，可能更多。其中40%可能来自化石燃料。在美国接管委内瑞拉并可能攫取其石油的情况下，有哪些事情需要牢记？

首先，我们采取军事行动，其主要目的似乎是增加美国石油公司对外国石油的优先获取权——我觉得这令人不安，坦率地说，有点匪夷所思。

在我看来，美国目前在为未来人工智能革命提供必要电力方面的主要问题，在于创造发电和输电能力以及改善我们的电网。不是从地下抽取更多石油。坦率地说，中国已经明白了特朗普政府完全拒绝阅读的信息。随着时间的推移，清洁能源（包括太阳能和其他形式的清洁能源技术）价格的下降将意味着，随着事态发展，将委内瑞拉的重质原油作为应对人工智能能源挑战的答案之一进行大规模押注？我必须说，我觉得这不太有说服力。我还没听到他们提出这个论点，但我认为这站不住脚。

这听起来像是他们完全可能随口抛出的东西。

我觉得他们干得出来。

现在，休息一下。

如果您想要一个美好、轻松的节奏变化，我建议您去阅读我们本周对国际消费电子展（CES）的现场报道。我们有一个团队在拉斯维加斯的展馆现场报道，总编辑尼莱·帕特尔正在录制一期《解码器》的现场节目，而我已经找到了我2026年最喜爱的新消费电子产品：

大家新年快乐！下周见。

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• 乐高宣布推出智能积木，这是50年来“最重要的进化”
• 2026年CES迄今发布的最佳科技产品
• 2026年国际消费电子展：来自最大科技展会的所有新闻、小工具和创新
• 乐高智能积木不仅是一次实验——也不仅仅是给孩子的
• 我测试了英伟达的特斯拉全自动驾驶竞争对手——特斯拉应该担心了

英文来源：

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about Big Tech, Big Government, and the big paradigm shifts that result from their collision. Not a subscriber yet? It’s a new year, so why not treat yourself?
Jake Sullivan is furious that Trump destroyed his AI foreign policy
Biden’s national security adviser tried to stop Nvidia from selling high-end chips to China. In a wide-ranging interview with The Verge, Sullivan predicts the consequences of Trump reversing that policy.
Jake Sullivan is furious that Trump destroyed his AI foreign policy
Biden’s national security adviser tried to stop Nvidia from selling high-end chips to China. In a wide-ranging interview with The Verge, Sullivan predicts the consequences of Trump reversing that policy.
In 2022, Jake Sullivan, then national security adviser under President Joe Biden and a powerful figure in the White House’s foreign policy team, assembled an interagency planning exercise out of the Situation Room: What were all the possible circumstances and outcomes of an AI arms race between the US and China — from trade wars to real wars, possibly even the arrival of AGI — and how would the federal government respond?
The details and results of that simulation are classified, but on Sunday, I spoke to Sullivan and asked if he could at least describe one outcome: Did they ever run a scenario where the AI industry’s profit interests were driving foreign policy instead of the government?
His candid response surprised me. “I confess that we did not factor in the possibility that we would actually be rolling back our export controls.”
Sullivan, now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is definitively pro-artificial intelligence and pro-innovation. But he thinks about AI in a way that a former national security adviser would: as a means to gain a geopolitical advantage against adversaries like China. His decision at the time was to place tight controls on the high-end chips that American companies were allowed to sell to China, extending a policy that dates back to the Cold War: Don’t sell high-end tech to America’s foreign enemies. Despite extreme backlash from tech companies, Sullivan was confident his policies would remain in place once Biden left office, telling Bloomberg in a January 2025 interview that “by and large,” tech CEOs accepted the need for those export controls, and that he wasn’t worried about incoming President Donald Trump cutting deals with them to loosen trade restrictions.
But that is, of course, exactly what happened. Over the past year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang slowly won over Trump, eventually persuading him to let Nvidia sell the H200 — its second-most powerful chip — to the Chinese market, with the US government taking a 25 percent cut. With America’s most advanced chips flooding into a market known for brazen IP theft, Sullivan is deeply alarmed that AI companies are literally delivering the United States’ technological advantage to a country that openly wants to surpass America. But even though the AI arms race is often compared to the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, there’s one crucial difference. The government funded nuclear research for the primary purpose of national defense, but tech companies are funding AI research for the primary purpose of making untold amounts of money. “Maybe that was a failure of imagination on my part,” admitted Sullivan.
Below, Sullivan and I have wide-ranging conversation about the current state of Trump’s AI policy, the lessons that Nvidia should take away from Tesla’s failures in the Chinese market, what he would have done if DeepSeek had been unveiled while he was still National Security Advisor, and — given that it was barely a day since the United States’ shocking abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — if the Trump administration would cite increased AI data center power consumption as a pretext for seizing Venezuela’s oil industry. (His assessment: “I would not put it past them.”)
This week at The Verge:

• “The year the government broke”, Lauren Feiner: 2025 was the year the federal government and consumer protections were gutted.
• “Free speech’s great leap backwards”, Felipe de la Hoz: An era of digital authoritarianism has American free expression in a stranglehold.
• “Someone made a ton of money betting on Maduro’s capture”, Terence O’Brien: A brand new account made some suspiciously timed bets on Polymarket.
• “Net neutrality was back, until it wasn’t”, Stevie Bonifield: The FCC is taking an ax to America’s broadband rules, even as some states are stepping up.
• “Hollywood cozied up to AI in 2025 and had nothing good to show for it”, Charles Pulliam-Moore: The technology dominated the entertainment discourse, but there’s yet to be a series or movie that shows AI’s potential.
• “Killing in the name of… nothing”, Sarah Jeong: Political violence has become illegible, and increasingly, politics and language have too.
• Consumer tech: “The Trump phone just missed another release date”, Dominik Preston: So much for launching “later this year.”
  “[I]n the short term, they will be able to book more orders. In the long term, they are contributing to a competitor that is going to squeeze them over time.”
  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
  Tina Nguyen: You’ve spent years warning about the risks of China overtaking America in the AI race. But then Trump comes in, rolls back the entirety of Biden’s AI executive order, and makes America’s AI policy friendlier to the industry. Republicans in Congress and the White House would argue that lifting regulations on trade and development would achieve the same goal of beating China in the AI race. What are your thoughts on that?
  Jake Sullivan: Well, one of the most important moves that we made during the Biden administration was to impose export controls on the sale of advanced chips to China for use for training of frontier AI models. And the fact that President Trump is now permitting the sale of some of these chips, in particular the H200, is just a gift to China, whose main constraint at the moment is not power, not money, not talent. It’s chips. And we are now basically filling that hole for them. I see no way in which that could possibly be anything other than an advantage to China, in the race between the US and China at the frontier of AI.
  And it goes beyond just the frontier, because the compute constraint for China also goes to their ability to serve their models globally — to become the AI backbone upon which the world runs. Prior to this decision, China was having trouble building data centers outside of China because they couldn’t produce enough of their own chips to do so. Now, they can have Tencent and Alibaba and other companies essentially building data centers using American chips to serve Chinese models to the rest of the world.
  I do not see how that works on anyone’s terms to benefit the United States — and especially on the terms set out by David Sacks and Donald Trump, who want to see the world run on an American technology stack.
  A couple days ago, the US announced that it would allow TSMC to import US-made equipment into their Chinese factories. I believe the argument they’re making is, “Oh, we’re basically using American technology to manufacture chips in China.”
  In general, my view is that export controls, both on semiconductor manufacturing equipment and on the most advanced AI chips, is necessary to protect America’s national security and advance America’s edge, vis-a-vis China in AI. And I don’t believe that it will come at a long-term commercial cost to the United States, because the demand for this equipment and the demand for these chips is so great that there will be a growing market in the rest of the world for American firms, whether it’s Nvidia or one of the American chip equipment makers. So I don’t buy the argument that we have to allow them to sell some of the most advanced technology into China to make sure that they can earn sufficient returns to continue to grow their companies.
  Just to give you one example: Nvidia, in 2022, objected to the export controls that we put into place and said, If you put these export controls on the A100 and the H100 chips, we are going to lose a lot of money. At that point, Nvidia’s market cap, I believe, was south of $400 billion. Fast forward three years: Those controls have been in place the whole time and Nvidia’s market cap is now in the multiple trillions of dollars.
  It’s the most valuable company in the world at this point.
  Exactly. And why? Because the demand outside of China is so great, and will continue to be great long into the future. So I have a real concern about the willingness of this administration to trade very short-term commercial gains for what I think will be a long-term cost. History over the course of the past few decades has been littered with cases of American companies wanting to sell into China to make immediate profits, only to learn later that once China mastered the technology and then poured money into the industry, [the companies] ended up getting screwed over time.
  I mean, that’s basically what happened to electric vehicles, right?
  Exactly. The idea had been that Tesla and Elon Musk thought, Get me a foothold into the Chinese market. Play nice with the Chinese government. This will give me access to a billion-plus people, and at the end of the day, it will help Tesla.
  Logically, there’s some basis to believe that. But the life of policy is not logic, but experience. And experience has taught us repeatedly that what happens is: We go into the Chinese market. The Chinese find ways to essentially use the presence of the US there — whether through technology transfer, outright theft, or just brutal competition — and end up surpassing, and then ultimately evicting, the American tech or the American product from their market. We saw that happen with electric vehicles. I think we’re going to end up seeing it with respect to these advanced AI compute technologies, because China is determined — and has said this from the very top for many years, long before these export controls were ever put into place — that they intend to end their dependence on American chip technology, and to try to become a major competitor to American chip technology globally.
  “[T]hey can have Tencent and Alibaba and other companies essentially building data centers using American chips to serve Chinese models to the rest of the world”
  So what you’re saying is that the companies themselves will also see a long-term detrimental effect from selling to China?
  My view is that in the short term, they will be able to book more orders. In the long term, they are contributing to a competitor that is going to squeeze them over time. I can’t make exact predictions about the future, and I’m not sitting in these boardrooms and I’m not seeing exactly what’s happening. But I would just say we have seen many, many examples of companies thinking that this is going to be a long-term success story, only to find ultimately that their entry into the Chinese market hurt their capacity over time.
  Now, one thing I will note in particular. I think Nvidia is looking at chip demand globally and has a concern that it now has competition outside of China: Google’s TPUs, Amazon’s Trainium, potential other entrants into the GPU market. And so it’s thinking, What do we do about this? Part of their answer to that threat, that some of the other hyperscalers in particular will not be sourcing Nvidia chips in the future, is to think: We need the Chinese market for this reason. I see that logic. I ultimately have questions about whether that will work for Nvidia. But what I know for certain is that it will not work for the United States of America, from our national security and national interest perspective, to allow Nvidia to sell these advanced chips to China.
  I was reading an interview that you did with Time magazine last year, and you mentioned that during your time in the White House, you ran a war room simulation about the China/US AI race. To the extent that you’re able to talk about it, did you ever run a scenario where the private sector’s interests won out over government?
  I confess that we did not factor in the possibility that we would actually be rolling back our export controls. We were operating scenarios presuming continuity of the export control policy. Now maybe that was a failure of imagination on my part, but having seen the first Trump administration — where they actually pursued a policy consistent with what the Biden administration very much built up on and expanded in our time in office — I was not expecting to see this administration come in and make these moves. And frankly, it’s come as something of a surprise to me. I think it’s come as a surprise not just to critics of the Trump administration, but many [of his] supporters in Congress, Republicans in Congress, who are stunned to have seen the Trump administration making moves along these lines.
  Now that you’re a private citizen, could you possibly game out the results of this scenario?
  There’s a few things happening now that deeply concern me. We’ve just talked about the chip controls issue, both with respect to the chips and to the manufacturing equipment that makes the chips.
  The second thing that concerns me is the private sector. Many elements of the private sector are saying to the Trump administration, Get entirely out of the game of safety and security alignment issues. We want a regulation-free, completely laissez-faire, let-’er-rip approach. And that has been reflected in the public statements and the public policy of the Trump administration. My concern is that we may end up in a circumstance in which China is dominating the global conversation over standards, with the United States virtually absent from the table. I think that is another area in which China could actually seek gains in its ability to become a dominant global AI player, where the United States is simply absenting itself, in part, at the behest of a private sector saying, Hey, the government shouldn’t be involved in this whole question of standards or regulation or safety or the like.
  The third area that concerns me is when it comes to the question of talent and America’s ability to attract the best talent from around the world. This administration is taking a series of steps that is putting up a “not welcome” sign. It is going to make it harder for us to get the very best engineers and very best minds when it comes to AI going forward. I think that that is going to put us at a disadvantage as well.
  And then the final area is: America’s long-term innovation edge has always been built on basic research, and this administration is slashing the budget for basic research. I think that that is problematic because if you rely entirely on the private sector to do all of your innovation, they can do amazing things, and our AI companies have done amazing things, and I have huge respect for the breakthroughs that they have made. But you also need research at universities, with National Science Foundation grants, that are looking not for a commercial advantage, but just for very basic scientific breakthroughs. It is that kind of research that ultimately leads to the greatest revolutions over time. Slashing that money and relying entirely on, basically, the big technology companies to do the work for innovation — I think [this] is problematic from the point of view of the US. It is disrupting a formula that has worked for us time and time again over multiple decades.
  One of the things I focus on is Trump’s transactionalism with Big Tech, and what he wants from AI companies in return for doing them this massive regulatory favor. You’re seeing OpenAI’s leaders donate to MAGA super PACs that boost him and his candidates. Now Trump is asking them to prevent “woke AI,” attacking Colorado’s approach to prevent algorithmic discrimination. What are your thoughts about the AI industry itself becoming partisan?
  I think it’s dangerous for any industry to wear the jersey of one political party or the other. When I was national security adviser, I worked hard to have good relationships with the leaders of all the major frontier AI companies. I think I succeeded in doing that, even though it was obviously widely reported that there were tensions between the administration and many of those companies. I think it’s important for senior government officials to develop good relationships, to understand where these companies are coming from. These companies are, in my view, a national asset of the United States. It is good that we have the most cutting-edge technology companies in the world, but it is also right and proper for the US government to ensure that there are proper regulations, norms, guardrails in place, both to protect the safety of Americans and to protect our national security.
  If an entire industry decides we’re going all in with one administration or one political party, or cutting deals, both political and financial, with an administration, it worries me that that is going to end up eroding what is one of America’s greatest strengths, which is that we don’t have this kind of entanglement of the private sector with our government, in ways that other countries have seen and have suffered from. So I would hope that the technology industry would think about the long term, and about the need to have good relationships with political actors across the spectrum, and to stay out of trying to make big bets on what exactly is going to happen in American politics, since none of us can can predict that, by any stretch of the imagination.
  So this is a bit of a hypothetical, but if you had still been national security adviser when DeepSeek was unveiled, what would have your response been?
  I think that the Chinese government actually played a role in hyping the DeepSeek release in order to send a message through their propaganda, relentlessly — and sadly, somewhat effectively — to voices in the West, basically saying: Resistance is futile. Your export controls cannot work. Give up on them. The whole chip strategy has not succeeded. That is what they tried to do. And that is nonsense.
  You know how we know that is nonsense? If I had still been national security adviser, I would have been pointing this out at every chance I got: DeepSeek’s CEO himself has repeatedly said that their main constraint is chips. Their main constraint is compute. What has made it difficult for them since that release at the beginning of last year, to continue to march forward at the pace they want to march forward, is they have not had access to high-end American GPUs. President Trump is now making it easier for them.
  I would have been stressing that there is more hype here about what this means for America’s compute advantage than there is reality. And in fact, the DeepSeek release, in a way, reinforced the need for effective, enforced, and in some instances, expanded American export controls when it comes to high-end GPUs.
  “I think it’s dangerous for any industry to wear the jersey of one political party or the other”
  Do you think the Trump administration has done anything right in the AI race against China?
  Well, first, I think they have put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the AI revolution that we’re in the midst of. I think they have properly recognized that this is an incredibly important moment. They have put a lot of high-level policy attention behind it. They are not neglecting it. I think the choices they’re making aren’t great, but I’m glad to see them elevating and prioritizing the issue.
  Second, they have largely abandoned the safety agenda. I think it is wrong and history will judge it as having been wrong. But one area where the AI Action Plan did, in fact, continue the Biden administration’s approach, was on safety when it comes to the risk of bio-uplift: the potential for convergence between AI and bioweapons in ways that could harm the security of the American people and people everywhere around the world. So I think that that has been a good thing for them too. And there have been these interesting initiatives like the Pax Silica, an effort to work with some friends and partners of the United States on chip technology, on other aspects of AI science and tech. I think that work is valuable work and should continue, and I want to see a further doubling down on engaging with allies, friends, partners in Europe, Asia, and other places as we go forward.
  But [overall], I think the administration has taken steps to reduce America’s innovation edge, increase China’s access to advanced compute, and erode America’s leadership role in terms of the standard setting necessary for being the global leader on AI. So I don’t have a very good story to tell, I’m afraid, although some of these steps, I think, deserve praise.
  Given how rapidly the situation is changing, I only have one Venezuela question, but I do want to loop it into the context of AI data centers and energy consumption. The International Energy Agency projects that by 2030, the US’ total energy consumption is going to rise by 10 percent, probably more, due to the demand for AI data centers. Forty percent of it is likely going to come from fossil fuels. What are things to keep in mind as Venezuela gets taken over by America and possibly has its oil seized?
  First, the idea that we would engage in military action, with the primary purpose appearing to be increasing preferential access for American oil companies to a foreign country’s oil — that, I find disturbing, and frankly, a little bit bizarre.
  The chief issue that I see in the United States right now, when it comes to the power necessary for the AI revolution going forward, is about creating generation and transmission capability and improving our grid. It’s not about pumping more oil out of the ground. And frankly, China’s gotten the memo that the Trump administration has completely refused to read. Over time, the [dropping] price point of clean energy — including solar and other forms of clean energy technology — [is] going to mean that, as this goes forward, betting big on heavy crude from Venezuela as part of an answer to an AI energy challenge? I must say, I don’t find that particularly convincing. I haven’t heard them make that argument, but I don’t think it holds a lot of water.
  It seems like something they would totally just throw out there.
  I would not put it past them.
  And now, Recess.
  If you want a nice, relaxing change of pace, my suggestion is that you go read our live coverage of CES this week. We’ve got a team reporting from the expo floor in Vegas, editor-in-chief Nilay Patel is taping a live episode of Decoder, and I’ve already found my new favorite consumer electronic of 2026:
  Happy New Year, everybody! See you next week.
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