How do users in China get access to Claude and ChatGPT through the gray market? What’s really driving China’s apparent “AI optimism”? How is China trying to deal with deepfakes and AI-generated content?

In this episode, I speak with Zilan Qian, a researcher at the Oxford China Policy Lab about the hidden side of China’s AI boom, including:

• How Chinese users use “transfer stations” to access American AI models like Claude and ChatGPT
• Why Chinese users still want to use Claude and ChatGPT even though there are strong Chinese mode
• Why China’s apparent AI optimism is really driven by anxiety about falling behind
• China’s push to label AI-generated content—and the problems with watermarks, detection, and false positives

Links:

• Zilan’s Oxford page
• Zilan on Substack and Twitter / X
• How to Buy Cheap Claude Tokens in China
• China’s AI optimism isn’t what it seems
• Labelling AI-Generated Content in China

How did China build a world-leading EV industry? China didn't just pick winners. Local governments and private entrepreneurs played a critical role alongside a broader national push into batteries and electric vehicle technology.

In this episode, I talk with Fengming Lu, an assistant professor at Australian National University, about China's decades-long effort to build a world-class auto industry, its pivot to EVs, and what lessons other countries might learn.

We discuss:

• How Chinese local governments act like VC investors

• What China learned from foreign automakers like GM, Volkswagen

• The rise of upstarts like Geely, Chery, and BYD

• What caused a wave of Chinese EV startups like NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto

• The "Hefei model"

Links:

• The Rise of China’s Electric Vehicle Industry: Strategic Alliances Between Local Governments and Private Capital

• Fengming's personal website

• Fengming on Twitter / X

For transcripts and more information, check out the High Capacity newsletter.

Follow host Kyle Chan on Twitter / X

Why is China’s biotech industry advancing so quickly? I talk with Abigail Coplin of Vassar College to unpack China’s biotech strategy, BGI, genomics, AI-driven drug discovery, gene therapies, biotech regulation, and what the U.S.-China biotech race means for innovation, national security, and the future of medicine.

• Why has China emerged so quickly as a global biotech powerhouse?
• What gives Chinese biotech companies an edge over their Western competitors?
• How did BGI become one of the world’s most influential genomics companies?
• Why are China’s gene and cell therapies advancing so rapidly?
• What should U.S. policymakers know about China's biotech industry?

Links:

• Abigail’s academic profile
• Abigail’s policy paper for the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations: “Getting Biotechnology Right: Managing Risk and Reward Between the U.S. and China in the Life Sciences”
• Yu Zhou and Abigail Coplin. 2022. “Innovation in a Science-Based Sector: The Institutional Evolution behind China’s Emerging Biopharmaceutical Innovation Boom.” The China Review.

For transcripts and more information, check out the High Capacity newsletter.

Follow host Kyle Chan on Twitter / X.

What happened with Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models? Why did Anthropic's approach to AI safety trigger such strong backlash? What does this mean for the future of AI regulation? What role does open-source AI play in this new era of AI control? How will this impact Chinese AI labs and open-source AI models?

In this episode, I talk with Nathan Lambert, a leading expert on open-source AI. He previously led post-training at Ai2, founded The ATOM Project, and writes the popular Interconnects AI newsletter.

Topics covered:

- Anthropic, Mythos, Fable, and the Claude controversy

- Are Anthropic’s AI safety claims sincere?

- Silent degradation, trust, and researcher backlash

- Open science, open-source AI, and safety

- How will Anthropic's new safety features impact Chinese AI labs?

- The “AGI era” of AI governance

- Is open-source AI safer or riskier?

- Why US developers use Chinese open-source models

- What Nathan learned from visiting China’s AI labs

- Are Chinese AI labs AGI-pilled?Follow Nathan Lambert:

• Interconnects newsletter
• The ATOM Project
• X/Twitter: @natolambert

Follow Kyle Chan:

• High Capacity newsletter
• X/Twitter: @kyleichan

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#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Anthropic #mythos #fable #Claude #OpenSourceAI #ChinaAI #AIGovernance #AISafety

In this episode of the High Capacity podcast, I talk with Matt Sheehan, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, about the next phase of the US-China AI race: AI safety, open-source models, AI agents, job displacement, and what the US and China might discuss with each other.

As the U.S. and China prepare for formal talks on AI, both sides are wrestling with a fast-changing technology landscape. The U.S. is increasingly worried about frontier model risks, cyber threats, non-state actors, and pre-release testing. China, meanwhile, is becoming more concerned about AI’s impact on jobs, social stability, political control, and the rise of autonomous AI agents.

We discuss what China really fears about AI, why Beijing’s AI governance strategy is shifting from control to deployment to broader regulation, how open-source AI might complicate safety talks, and what realistic US-China talks on AI might look like.

Topics covered:

U.S.-China AI talks, AI safety, Chinese AI policy, AI agents, OpenClaw, open-source AI, frontier models, cyber risk, AI job displacement, China’s AI regulations, autonomous weapons, AI hotlines, and the future of AI governance.

Links:

- Matt Sheehan’s Substack

- Matt Sheehan’s Carnegie page

- “China is getting worried about AI & jobs”

- “China Is Worried About AI Companions. Here’s What It’s Doing About Them.”

- Matt Sheehan on Twitter: @mattsheehan88

For transcripts and more, check out the ⁠High Capacity newsletter⁠

More about the host, Kyle Chan, fellow at Brookings

China’s biotech and healthcare sectors are evolving at extraordinary speed — from AI-powered “doctor avatars” and digital health super apps to a wave of Chinese drug innovation reshaping the global pharmaceutical industry.

In this episode, I speak with physician and healthcare strategist Dr. Ruby Wang about the latest trends in China's AI + healthcare innovation.We discuss:

• Why Western pharma companies are rushing to license Chinese drugs
• China’s rise as a global biotech powerhouse
• AI doctors, digital hospitals, and health super apps
• The role of Alibaba, Ant Group, and DeepSeek in healthcare
• Why China’s healthcare digitization is moving faster than the West
• The future of AI in medicine and diagnosticsChinese medical devices, robotics, and healthcare hardware
• How Chinese regulators accelerated biotech innovation
• Whether healthcare can become China’s next major global export industry
• The challenges China still faces in healthcare access and inequality

Ruby Wang is a UK-trained physician, founder of China Health Pulse, and author of the upcoming book China Cure, which explores the global impact of China’s biotech and AI healthcare advances.

Links:

China Health Pulse newsletter and podcast: https://www.chinahealthpulse.com/

For transcripts and more, check out the ⁠High Capacity newsletter⁠: https://www.highcapacity.org/

More about the host, Kyle Chan: https://www.kyleichan.com/

China is racing to build its own complete semiconductor industry, from AI chips and fabs to chipmaking tools like EUV lithography machines. I'm joined by industry expert Paul Triolo.

00:28 China’s Semiconductor Self-Reliance Push

11:50 How Huawei Became China’s Chip Champion

17:37 Huawei, SMIC, and the Fight for Fab Capacity

24:14 Can China Build Its Own EUV Lithography Machines?

36:55 DeepSeek, Huawei, and China’s AI Chip Feedback Loop

53:53 Why Chinese Tech Giants Are Designing Their Own Chips

Links:

• American Affairs: “Innovation Under Pressure: China’s Semiconductor Industry at a Crossroads”
• Paul Triolo on X: @pstAsiaTech
• Paul Triolo's Substack: AIStackDecrypted

For transcripts and more, check out the ⁠High Capacity newsletter⁠.

Hosted by Kyle Chan

In this special crossover episode, I talk with TP Huang about the broader AI supply chain beyond just models and chips. We cover the new DeepSeek V4 model and China’s efforts to integrate with domestic AI chips. We talk about energy infrastructure, like inverters and transformers. And we discuss the robotics supply chain and how this overlaps with smartphones, EVs, and other industries in China.

Note: TP Huang is not on video, just audio.

00:00 Intro

01:13 DeepSeek V4 and Huawei chips

13:01 Hardware and Infrastructure Bottlenecks

21:03 Energy supply chain

29:58 Edge AI and small models

35:14 Embodied AI and robotics

39:14 China's robotics supply chain

45:43 Different tech paths

53:32 Commercializing scientific advances

58:44 Personal journeys in China tech

Links:

• Follow TP Huang on Twitter / X

• TP’s Substack and China Tech Talk podcast

For transcripts and more, check out the High Capacity newsletter.

I'm your host, Kyle Chan, a Fellow at Brookings.