00:00During your tenure at the National Security Council at the White House, you crafted the
00:04Biden administration's technology protection strategy, including all semiconductor export
00:09controls.
00:10Do you think the current Trump administration's approach is continuing in the right direction?
00:14The answer is clearly no.
00:16The policies that they've taken have been to largely walk back controls and certainly
00:21not to close loopholes in controls and continue to move the ball forward.
00:27So that has been very problematic, and that's why you've seen the policy of sending AI
00:32chips to China that has profoundly complicated a debate on an issue that was largely settled
00:37several years ago.
00:38It's why you see pervasive smuggling.
00:40It's why you see the remote access problems that we're seeing.
00:43So I think that not addressing these has been problematic.
00:46Now what I will say is I think that mythos has very profoundly changed the conversation
00:51in Washington on AI.
00:54It has not yet manifested in terms of controls and in terms of new measures or things like
01:00that.
01:00But that said, I think the administration is now taking very seriously the idea that we
01:06have to have regulations around AI.
01:08And I think before mythos, the idea was just deregulate everything, export controls, domestic
01:13policy, just let the private sector rip.
01:15Yep.
01:16You said export controls are the only tool to slow China's AI progress, but this is while
01:20major tech executives like NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang have criticized these types of policies.
01:26How much role should the private sector have in shaping national security interests, especially
01:30when commercial interests don't always align?
01:33If you just took the approach of anything that hurts an American company is therefore by definition
01:38bad for America, you would have no export controls.
01:41And that does not work.
01:43It's very clear that there are certain technologies that we don't want to go into adversaries' hands,
01:48and we just have to accept that certain costs are actually worth bearing for national security
01:53benefit.
01:54And therefore, the economic interests of the company are not always going to align completely
01:58with national interests.
02:00I would also note that export controls have actually been really beneficial to NVIDIA in
02:04the past.
02:04The fact that SMIC doesn't make chips that compete with TSMC is largely because of US
02:10export controls on EUV.
02:12The fact that Huawei doesn't make chips that compete with NVIDIA is because the United States
02:19blocked Huawei from manufacturing at TSMC.
02:21NVIDIA sells every single chip that they make.
02:24So it's not like more sales to China are actually helping them sell more chips because Jensen
02:31Huang will say everywhere he goes, the chips are sold out.
02:33They want to have a more diverse customer base, and the only place they can diversify is in
02:38China.
02:39The problem is that's not in America's interest to allow them to do that.
02:43They want to effectively de-risk from the American market, but it's not in the American government's
02:48interest to permit that.
02:49NVIDIA doesn't make this argument because I think it would be pretty politically unpopular,
02:53but it does explain why there's a legitimate business interest for them selling to China.
02:59Anthropic has described its AI model mythos as too dangerous for public release and is only giving
03:04access to select companies.
03:06Now, do you think that early access should also be extended to the Taiwan government or Taiwanese
03:11semiconductor companies that are also critical to the semiconductor supply chain and AI ecosystem?
03:17And I think, ultimately, you will see probably some kind of tiered approach, just generally
03:21speaking, in terms of model access, where you'll have the most advanced models, second
03:25most, third most, probably we're not going to see the most advanced models publicly released
03:29anymore going forward, I don't think.
03:32But regardless, yes, absolutely, the United States and Taiwan should cooperate with advanced
03:37AI models.
03:38TSMC should be integral to that.
03:39And also, the Taiwanese government and Taiwanese companies need to make sure that they are doing
03:44their utmost to make sure that those models and that technology is protected and it does
03:50not become some kind of pass through to China or others.
03:53TSMC need to be involved.
03:53So, please do it, please.
03:53Thanks, everyone.
03:53Thanks, Mal.
03:53Bye.
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