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Nikkei Asia
26-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Targeting DeepSeek won't fix Washington's flawed AI strategy on China
Paul Triolo is a Partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group and Global Tech Policy Lead of DGA Group. The Trump administration appears poised to take a series of actions targeting DeepSeek, a fast-rising Chinese artificial intelligence startup whose advanced AI models have quickly gained traction among developers and tech enthusiasts worldwide. A recent congressional report called DeepSeek a "profound threat" to national security, citing concerns about potential data transfers to China, censorship applied to model outputs, and allegations that the firm used restricted Nvidia chips to train its models.
CNBC
22-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Nvidia's Jensen Huang thinks U.S. chip curbs failed — and he's not alone
Replacing Nvidia is a tall order. While Chinese competitors are years behind the company's cutting-edge technology, many analysts and insiders warn they are catching up, thanks to U.S. export restrictions. U.S. chip restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductor technology, especially those used in artificial intelligence, have been rolled out over several years, with the initial aim of curbing China's military advancement and protecting US dominance in the AI industry. However, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, U.S. semiconductor export controls on China have been "a failure," causing more harm to American businesses than to China. While the goals of cutting back the Chinese military's access to advanced U.S. technology and maintaining U.S. leadership in AI appear to have had some success on paper, loopholes and existing semiconductor stockpiles in China have complicated these aims, said Ray Wang, an independent tech and chip analyst with a focus on U.S.-China competition. "That's partly why we are seeing a closing of the gap between Chinese and U.S. AI capabilities," added Wang. Leaders of Nvidia and other American chip designers have long lobbied against chip controls as they worry about losing lucrative business deals. Huang said at the annual Computex technology trade show in Taipei that Nvidia's GPU market share in China fell to 50% from 95% over the past four years. Indeed, chip experts say that the curbs create more harm than good for the U.S. "The effects of the controls are twofold. They have the impact of reducing the ability of U.S. companies to access the China market and, in turn, have accelerated the efforts of the domestic industry to pursue greater innovation," said Paul Triolo, Partner and Senior VP for China at DGA Group. "You create competitors to your leading companies at the same time you're cutting them off from a massive market in China," he added. While Washington's most comprehensive export controls were passed during former U.S. President Joe Biden's term in the White House, curbs on Huawei and SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, go back to Donald Trump's first term in office. On April 15, Nvidia disclosed that new controls, which restricted sales of its H20 graphics processing units to China, had led to a $5.5 billion charge against its revenue. The restrictions are expected to be a boon for the demand and development of local Nvidia alternatives like Huawei, which is working on its own AI chips. They also come against the background of Beijing mobilizing billions as part of its chip self-sufficiency campaign. "The bottom line is, the controls have incentivized China to become self-sufficient across these supply chains in a way they never would have contemplated before," Triolo said. Chinese AI-related achievements, such as DeepSeek's R1 model and news of Huawei chip progress, have led observers to question the effectiveness of chip controls. According Wang, the independent analyst, China's semiconductor and AI space has seen an acceleration of startups, market opportunities, and AI talent alongside the restrictions, which has clearly resulted in domestic innovations. "I think the arguments that export controls accelerate innovation is quite valid," Wang said. Nivida's Haung also noted these trends in April, telling lawmakers in Washington that the country has made enormous progress in the last several years and is right behind the U.S. Nvidia's H20 chip was designed specifically to comply with existing chip controls prior to the clampdown on exports. "We are not just talking about one export control, we are talking about a series of export controls that originate from all the way back in 2019," said Wang, noting that the evolving policies have had a couple of different objectives. Meanwhile, in what DGA's Paul Trilio calls a "moving of the goalposts," it seems that the aims of the restrictions have shifted to an intention to slow down and contain Chinese AI and semiconductor developments. "The continued expansion of the controls, and the lack of an articulation of what the clear end game here is, has really created a lot of issues, and created a lot of collateral damage," Trilio said, adding that it has led more people to question the policy. In a statement earlier this month, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a U.S. think tank which has received funding from various technology companies, said in a post that "the Biden administration's export control policy for AI chips has largely been a failure since day one. Yet, year after year, it has doubled down, attempting to plug various loopholes." "While [the U.S. government] is certainly right to prevent U.S. companies from selling advanced AI technology to the Chinese military, cutting U.S. companies off from the entire commercial Chinese market is a cure worse than the disease," Stephen Ezell of ITIF told CNBC in an email. "U.S. export controls have cost NVIDIA at least $15 billion in sales, and those are revenues the company needs to be able to earn to invest in future generations of innovation."
The National
11-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Trump's visit to the Gulf: Three areas that will shape US ties to the region
Prem Kumar is a partner at DGA Group, a global advisory firm. He previously served as senior director for the Middle East and North Africa in former US president Barack Obama's National Security Council
The National
11-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Trump's visit to the Gulf: 3 areas that will shape US ties to the region
Prem Kumar is a partner at DGA Group, a global advisory firm. He previously served as senior director for the Middle East and North Africa in former US president Barack Obama's National Security Council May 11, 2025
Mint
09-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Trump's bespoke trade deal with UK sets little precedent for other nations
President Trump made a deal. Now comes the hard part: getting more. Trump agreed to a framework for a trade agreement with the U.K., giving his administration momentum as it faces pressure to notch scores more to avoid hurting American consumers. But the deal was limited in scope and included niche issues regarding the U.K., meaning it didn't offer other nations a clear road map to follow, foreign officials said. Many other deals weren't seen as likely to come together so easily. The U.K. was low-hanging fruit, given the U.S. enjoys a goods trade surplus with the country, unlike with China, America's third-largest trading partner for goods in 2024, according to the Census Bureau. Imports from China are currently subject to a whopping 145% levy. In a sign of how eager Trump was for a win in the trade conflicts, he called U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer late Wednesday to finalize the details. Starmer was watching his favorite soccer team, Arsenal, play a crucial European game at the time, according to the prime minister, who said he hadn't planned to announce a trade deal on Thursday. 'They are keen to show they are making progress," said Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor at DGA Group. 'These are signals to the market. It's better to have a step forward than a step back. But they are going to have to demonstrate these deals are going to end up with sustaining commitments on both sides." While analysts questioned the significance of the deal, Trump, who has shown frustration with questions over his trade agenda and the global turbulence it has created, cast it as historic. His team said the deal would unlock billions for U.S. exporters. The Trump administration agreed to roll back tariffs imposed on British steel and automobiles in exchange for the U.K.'s purchasing Boeing jets and giving American farmers greater access to U.K. markets. The U.S. also agreed to allow Rolls-Royce jet engines and parts to be imported tariff-free. Trump expressed confidence in reaching agreements with other countries, notably China. The president, though, showed no sign of backing entirely away from his tariff agenda as he seeks to rebalance global trade. 'One lesson from the U.S.-U.K. announcement is that all of America's trading partners are likely to face at minimum a 10% tariff," said National Foreign Trade Council President Jake Colvin. 'That alone would result in a permanent fourfold increase from the average U.S. tariff of 2.4% in 2024, which is a scenario that was nearly unthinkable just a year ago." President Trump touted the trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. from the Oval Office on Thursday. The nature of the U.K. agreement shows how Trump is willing to bypass traditional trade pacts that can take several years to hammer out. The move also highlighted the soft power of the U.K.; Trump is a keen Anglophile who has in the past said he thought a deal could be worked out. Foreign partners generally viewed Thursday's news as positive but didn't see how its contours directly applied to their own talks, officials said. Trump is dispatching Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Switzerland this weekend for high-stakes talks with officials from China. The two nations have effectively closed trading through massive retaliatory tariffs. For Chinese officials, what's notable in the limited deal Trump struck with the U.K. is that it doesn't appear to have any details about the two countries aligning to isolate China—a stated goal by Trump advisers for the administration's trade negotiations with various nations. The lack of such details, at least for now, is likely to bolster China's position as senior officials from both sides meet in Switzerland. Meanwhile, even though Trump told reporters Thursday that he expects the coming U.S.-China meeting to be 'substantive," Beijing is treating it largely as an opportunity to present its position and gauge the administration's intentions. In particular, Chinese officials view it as a chance to figure out whether the Trump administration—and Trump himself—intend to pursue a deal that could help put the brakes on the current trend of decoupling between the U.S. and China. If those talks with China go well, Trump suggested the tariffs could come down. 'We're going to see. Right now you can't get any higher. It's at 145% so we know it's coming down," he said. A European Union diplomat said it could be helpful to get a sense from the U.K. of what worked in negotiating with the U.S. But the diplomat added the U.K. market is much smaller than the EU's and is more unified compared with the bloc's 27 member states. A spokeswoman for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who visited with Trump this week, didn't respond to a request for comment on the implications of the U.S.-U.K. framework. Bank of Nova Scotia economist Derek Holt said the U.S. runs a goods trade surplus with the U.K., and hence hasn't found itself 'in the same crosshairs of the Trump administration as other countries," such as Canada. Mark Warner, a trade lawyer who practices in Toronto and the U.S., said Canada faces a tougher haul because of the range of issues outstanding, such as automobiles, dairy production, and Canada's digital services tax. Plus, he said, Carney 'has adopted a more contentious approach to trade negotiations with a lot of red lines and no evident openings for compromise in a minority Parliament." The U.S. is also engaged with a range of other nations, including India and Japan. Juan Carlos Baker, who was Mexico's deputy trade minister during the negotiations for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed in late 2018, said the deal with the U.K. is in no way comparable to the deeper trade relationship the U.S. has with Mexico. Mexico shipped almost three million vehicles to the U.S. and supplied 40% of U.S. auto parts last year. A coming review of the USMCA is more complex and negotiations can extend for years, Baker said. 'Even with the best will, such an agreement doesn't come out overnight in any way," said Baker, who participated in USMCA trade negotiations with the U.S. and Canada for about two years. In the initial aftermath of the April 2 'Liberation Day" tariffs announcement and the subsequent 90-day pause, Trump and top administration officials predicted a wave of deals. Trump in recent days has expressed frustration with questions on when deals will land. 'Everyone says, 'When, when, when are you going to sign deals?'" the president told reporters during his Tuesday meeting with Carney. 'We don't have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us." Write to Alex Leary at Lingling Wei at and Paul Vieira at
