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Mad, China, and the Semiconductor Showdown (Part 1)

eastwind.substack.com

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Re: Mad, China, and the Semiconductor Showdown (Part 1)

#2
Hi all! I'm an early stage investor at FirstMark Capital.

In analyzing over 3,000 financings during my time working on the 2023 MAD Landscape (https://mad.firstmark.com/), I noticed some fascinating trends in how the US and China have taken very different approaches to advancing their respective ML/AI startup ecosystems.

In this two-part series, I explore how China has taken a much more “concentrated” approach to building its ML/AI ecosystem, and how this approach is designed to help China reach technology parity with the US (part 1).

I also highlight the importance (and the urgency) with which the US needs to achieve full semiconductor independence, so that the progress that we’ve enjoyed so far in the fields of ML/AI remain unimpeded (upcoming in part 2).

Feedback & comments appreciated!

Re: Mad, China, and the Semiconductor Showdown (Part 1)

#3
post #2

Hi all! I'm an early stage investor at FirstMark Capital. In analyzing over 3,000 financings during my time working on the 2023 MAD Landscape ( https://mad.firstmark.com/ ), I noticed some fascinating trends in how the US and China have taken very different approaches to advancing their respective ML/AI startup ecosystems. In this two-part series, I explore how China has taken a much more “concentrated” approach to b…

Not sure about the "invisible" hand part. Note the difference could be explained by the structure of each respective economy. Chinese economy is not nearly as service centric as US (Chinese marginal cost of service labor still relatively low), so chatbot type of applications are not nearly as interesting to China, though that attitude could change with time.

Re: Mad, China, and the Semiconductor Showdown (Part 1)

#4
post #3
post #2

Hi all! I'm an early stage investor at FirstMark Capital. In analyzing over 3,000 financings during my time working on the 2023 MAD Landscape ( https://mad.firstmark.com/ ), I noticed some fascinating trends in how the US and China have taken very different approaches to advancing their respective ML/AI startup ecosystems. In this two-part series, I explore how China has taken a much more “concentrated” approach to b…

Not sure about the "invisible" hand part. Note the difference could be explained by the structure of each respective economy. Chinese economy is not nearly as service centric as US (Chinese marginal cost of service labor still relatively low), so chatbot type of applications are not nearly as interesting to China, though that attitude could change with time.

Yup, very good point. With the publicity generated by OpenAI there's a heavy focus now to fund domestic competitors (see article published on the Information today, pay-walled -- https://www.theinformation.com/articles/sequoia-and-other-u-...).

The downstream effects on the application layer is an open question, however.