China Morning Missive (Part II) Couldn’t let this one go as it hits directly on a host of issues I’ve been attempting to raise albeit with very little success. Mentioned in a note yesterday that China had already won the robotics race no matter the urgency stressed by Marc Andressen for American policy to prioritize resources. Well, now we have just out a very detailed piece from the Wall Street Journal which aligns with many of the points made in various Notes here over the past several months. Reducing the dynamic to its most simply form, the American AI titans want to create “God in a box”. The Chinese AI titans want to build deeper/wider economic moats. The latter has already achieved a massive lead on the former. Here are some choice outtakes from the article. “At one of China’s biggest ports, shipping containers whiz about on self-driving trucks with virtually no workers in sight, while the port’s scheduling is run by AI.” I’ve been to the world’s largest port, Yangshan, here in Shanghai. The entire operation is automated. The crane, the trucks, all of it. “It could further enable the spread of “dark factories,” with operations so automated that work happens around the clock with the lights dimmed.” The concept of “dark factories” is rapidly expanding. No workers, 24-hour a day operations and facilities where there is no need for lighting. “China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year, nearly nine times as many as the U.S. and more than the rest of the world combined, according to the International Federation of Robotics.” The ability to scale remains a top comparative advantage throughout China. No need for any additional commentary here. The quote above speaks for itself. “One risk is that AI could destroy more factory jobs than China expects, leaving it with too many unemployed workers.” This one made me laugh. So much for all the Peter Zeihan and the others claiming that China posed no long-term geopolitical threat given the demographic timebomb. So it is rather clear that the industrial robotics industry is now dominated by China. Now the focus turns to humanoid robotics. The evidence here, however, strongly suggests that there is no race. The only outstanding variable is timing. How quickly will we all see China rolling out these sorts or robots at scale? Based on my experience, I’d say before the end of 2027. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-robots-china-manufacturing-89ae1b42?st=anYykK&reflink=article_copyURL_share