Letter from Beijing 2: Tsinghua University – #113

So I think many people outside of the

academic system don't really understand

the rankings. It also has to be split

between like undergrad and graduate. So

so without a doubt Chinha undergraduate

students are the best in the world. I

would say on on average much better than

the best universities in the US. But

this doesn't actually mean that the

education quality itself is higher. It

just means this the filtering system

they can filter better students. But

then for graduate it's still without a

doubt that the front like most of the

frontier research is still in the US

although China is catching up very

quickly. That's why we see uh that most

of the PhD students in the US are

actually Chinese because they're high

quality students.

[music]

[music]

Welcome to Manifold. This is a special

episode. We here at Chinua University in

Beijing, China. I have four guests in

the room with me today. They are all

Americans with some knowledge of this

university. First, we have Han Feduk,

who has been a guest before on the

podcast. We'll link to that episode in

the show notes. He is a resident of

Beijing. He is [music] a former banker

and also a novelist and uh he is going

to be part of the conversation but he's

not the main focus of the conversation.

Welcome to the show Heda.

>> Hello everyone.

>> The main guests today are three

individuals who are actually part of

Chinua University. First we have Gabriel

who's an American and who is finishing

his undergraduate degree here. Gabriel

say hi.

>> Hello. Next we have Justin who did his

undergraduate degree in the University

of California system but is doing a PhD

here in AI related research um here at

Chinua. Justin say hi.

>> Hi everyone.

>> Finally we have Alex who is a professor

also AI researcher here at Chinua

University. Alex say hi.

>> Hello. Okay. We're actually recording in

a research seminar room at the Yao

Mathematical Sciences Center uh at

Chinua. And Yao, as many of you

physicists will know, it's the Yao of

Calaba Yao manifolds. And he won the

Fields Medal and is one of the great

geometers in the history of mathematics.

We're we're borrowing a room in his

research center right now. And

acoustics, I think, might be less than

ideal, but hopefully my engineers will

fix this in post-prouction.

So Gabriel, let's start with you. You

are finishing your undergraduate degree

here

>> in computer science.

>> Yes.

>> Tell us about

your journey to Chinua. Why are you at

Chinua and not at a US university?

>> How has your experience been here?

>> To preface, I think it's important to

say that I grew up in Hong Kong. I went

to international school in Hong Kong and

yeah so most of my classmates they went

abroad to do a university or to stay in

Hong Kong. So the main option for Hong

Kong um Canada, the UK and the states.

I've also applied to the states during

my um undergraduate application season.

In my opinion is it's been trending

upwards that more people are considering

mainland universities. And my personal

reasons were one uh yeah I just one one

aspect was I have never got an education

in mainland and also uh like language

wise I was much weaker in Mandarin. So I

felt like not only was Singua is Tinua

really good for the field I'm interested

in, so computer science, but also

another aspect of it would be I would be

able to learn about China as a system

and just being in that new environment.

And I think yeah, now four years down

the line, I definitely see that I got a

lot out of my college experience here.

>> Let's start with the basic thing, your

Mandarin language capability. So

>> you probably studied it in high school

through the Hong Kong system. It sounds

like you feel you weren't fully fluent

when you went off to college.

>> Definitely. No, I studied it actually as

a first language. I did the IB system,

so international boret. I technically

got a bilingual diploma. We only kind of

practiced writing and reading whereas

spoken Mandarin because the playground

language in my school was just English.

So I never really got the opportunity to

really converse that much in Mandarin.

That was lacking.

>> And how was the were the classes you

were taking here in English or in

Mandarin?

>> Oh, when you say chinua

>> chinua.

>> Oh yeah, all like 95% of my classes were

Chinese men.

>> And was that a shock to you?

>> Uh yeah, first year was pretty hard.

That was one of the biggest challenges I

faced. Uh especially my first year. I

realized later on that it wasn't nearly

as big a problem as I thought because

your language skills improve a lot when

you start using it daily and I just

never had that alcohol.

>> But you could already read.

>> Yes, but like slowly.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Was it an active effort to get your like

the number of characters that you could

recognize up to what a typical I mean

these are some of the top students in

China, right? This is like the average

student here is kind of like one in a

thousand.

>> Yes.

>> Talent level. So to preface, I think my

ability in Chinese was so I could

converse with people, but it's like when

I first came it was so awkward to the

point where they'd say like three

sentences and I have to think about what

I have to say. Like I wouldn't be able

to form like a multi-line dialogue and I

would actually have to think really hard

about what I was saying. But I realized

like two months down the line just

because it was really hard but after two

months uh it just got much more natural,

>> right? And in terms of like lecture

notes, like if you got some fat set of

lecture notes all in Mandarin, all in

Chinese characters, how did you handle

that?

>> Yes. So, um, pre GBT era, so that's when

I first entered college because, yeah, I

use a lot of translation software, but

also we just really had to try really

hard just read it.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah. So, we'll we'll come back to this

with some of the other guests here

today, but if you compared notes, and

the ideal case would be someone you went

to IB high school with in Hong Kong that

you know well that went to a Western

university to also study computer

science. Is there a case like that where

you can compare notes about what you

learned here and what the experience was

like compared to your friend?

>> When you say compare notes, like

physical notes or just like talking

about what we study? just talking about

what you learned, what the activities

were like, research projects, just

comparing your two CS education.

>> I work on I have a friend at NYU who did

undergrad for CS and another one at

Boston. I think course wise, just like

the courses we took like computer

networks, computer architecture,

operating system. So these courses we

all took separately and we all kind of

know the basics of it. But regarding

like opportunities, they're vastly

different. As in in Tijuana, if you just

want to dip your feet into research, you

kind of just text a teacher. It's it's

that simple. Whereas in NYU

specifically, I know um it's actually a

really competitive opportunity and most

people graduate without even uh getting

into it at all. Yeah.

>> So, you were able to get involved in

research.

>> Yes. really has a thing called student

research training and

>> that's advertised to undergraduates uh

to just test out the research

environment.

>> Yeah.

>> Got it. Now my understanding from

talking to CS graduates in the US is

that generally the hardest courses for

them are maybe like a senior level

machine learning class

>> and because there's a lot of statistical

methods and stuff like or statistical

thinking that they're maybe not used to.

Then also there's usually an algorithms

class that maybe uses the book by

Revest.

>> Those are typically challenging. So

there are a lot of people who are good

at at least this is a you know pre-Cloud

code era but there are a lot of kids who

are actually good programmers but they

never really fully understand the

material in say the senior level machine

learning class. So they never really

fully understand all the algorithmic

thinking which is kind of basically

discrete math in that course. Do you

have any experience like that? Like are

the Chin Hua kids all really good and

they can master that material easily?

>> I went through college with AI, right? I

know first f firstand because all my

friends are like Chinese. I know I live

with Chinese people in my dorm. We just

use AI for everything. I can't say that

they know all the material like from a

very basic level.

>> Yeah. Um I think yeah the AI use and

like the just understanding the overall

concept but maybe not like the specific

detail I think that's universal. Wow.

Okay. So the the thing I was trying to

get at is you see at the more elite US

schools all the CS majors can really

understand the more mathematical stuff.

Whereas in a lot of like standard US CS

schools you might be a good programmer

but you actually don't understand the

math. and you and you just like look

back at your college CS degree and be

like, oh, that was all useless stuff

that I don't actually use now working at

Oracle,

>> right?

>> My question was like, oh, would Chinua

be different because the students are so

highly selected, but it sounds like

because of AI that my question is like

totally irrelevant now,

>> right? I I get what you mean. I think

for a lot of the classes, yeah, we were

forced to learn like theoretical math,

like the basics, like discrete math and

stuff.

>> Yeah, students pick up pick up on that

like really easily.

>> Yeah. Yeah, we also had like hard

machine learning courses and like AI and

yeah, they got the fundamentals down

really easily. But I think I was more

applying as a sense of like since AI

progresses so quickly and a lot of times

like these new methods we don't learn in

class. But regarding those methods like

for example what GDP has done for

language models, those are covered even

in like

>> basic AI classes.

>> Regarding those techniques and stuff,

yeah. Um maybe it's not that Chinese

people can't understand it, but it's

just because we didn't learn it in

class.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So we don't really get to

>> I was just reflecting on my experience

in industry dealing with a lot of coders

who maybe often they don't have a CS

degree, but even if they do have a CS

degree, these sort of quote hardest

classes that CS majors take, a lot of

them basically didn't master it and

totally forgot it after being in

industry.

>> Like they just memorized.

>> Yeah. they got through the class

somehow, but they didn't really when you

start talking to them about it in the

real world, they don't really actually

know what you're talking about.

>> But like I would guess most MIT CS

majors actually do really master that

material as undergrads and remember it

years later. So that's that's the

distinction I was trying to get at. I've

never talked to Martin student but like

I would assume that a lot of us like

even at the top universities um yeah

there's a big population that who just

don't bother understanding classes that

deeply because really a lot of people

the attitude in industry is like

>> yeah we got the degree that's all you

can

>> okay

>> that's that's another thing physics

physics people would find weird about CS

because it's got such a career driven

approach like a lot of the people are

not as deeply interested in the core

concepts and part maybe they're just

looking for like a signaling um kind of

uh certificate that lets them get the

job.

>> Right. Right. I think in computer

science at least

>> Yeah. a lot of us just

the main goal is the degree.

>> Yeah.

>> Whereas like the underlying architecture

it's actually kind of rare to see

someone that in tune with understanding

like very uh like lower level

everything. Yeah. Someone told me that

uh like one of the best CS curricula in

the US is the Berkeley one because it

actually forces you to like actually

understand how to build the machine from

you know very low-level considerations

all the way up and not all the some of

the top CS programs don't necessarily

force all the students through that that

sort of conceptual road map. I mean, I

know the computer science department,

one of their for undergrad, their

operating system class, they're forced

to like code a virtual CPU from scratch.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's considered like one of the

hardest projects I have to take. I

wasn't forced to do that because I do

software engineering.

>> Yeah.

>> But yeah, I think if I were forced to do

that, I Yeah. I would have to understand

things from the basic.

>> Yeah. Got it. Let me jump to uh Justin.

Justin is a graduate student here at

Shinua and as I mentioned he did his

undergrad degree in the University of

California system. He and I actually

communicated a little bit because he was

trying to decide what to do for his

graduate career and I actually just made

the comment to him that I thought Chinua

was exceptional in the sense that a lot

of the there was a lot of research going

on here. The students are really good

and also the professors seem to have

quite a lot of connection to industry

you know comparable to at least in my

perception like at Stanford like so many

professors they and their students are

involved in startups and my perception

was that that was true here too. Justin

I don't know how much influence my

remarks had but Justin ended up coming

here and uh you've been here one year

now. How long have you been here?

>> I got here last year in August.

>> So about almost one year. Okay. So tell

us how your experience has been. My

experience here at the good I think the

research environment and the resources I

got through my advisor are probably one

of the top ones. So in particular I

always have access to GUS

um when I need to run experiments. I

won't I won't say which ones but

[laughter]

>> made by company that starts with M.

>> Yeah. Or with an H. The best.

>> Yeah. Best the best. Yes.

B. Basically, my professor is one of the

top professors at Ching, which I got in

because I'm American. And it's also

great because I get to meet uh and

collaborate with the best students in

all of China as well. It's just a it's a

really great opportunity overall.

>> So, let me unpack that a little bit. So,

when you say I got in because I'm an

American, do you mean you were able to

work with one of the top professors in

your department because you're an

American? Did that play a role in it?

>> Yeah. So there's two separate systems

for international students and domestic

students and even for the Hong Kong,

Taiwan and Macau residents. So so the

domestic students um they have limited

quotas and they have to compete with all

the other domestic students. So the

competition is very intense and then

because there aren't many international

students applying in the first place, I

have much less competition. Do

>> you mean admission into the PhD program

or the seat in the lab of your adviser?

Both actually.

>> Both. Okay. So there's a quota is there.

Even at the level of like advising

students, there's kind of a quota for

international students.

>> Yeah. Al Alex can speak on this more

later because he's a professor here. But

I think for most professors, they have

um two domestic quota every year and

then one to two international quota

every year as well.

>> Okay.

>> And then the Taiwan HK Macau, they count

for international. they are forced to do

a bachelor's first and cannot directly

apply a PhD

>> and whereas you are you already in the

PhD program

>> yeah I for international uh since I

apply as American I can directly apply a

PhD

>> okay

>> I don't have to do masters first

>> now I have the same question for you

that I had for Gabriel which is if you

have a friend who's in the US also at

the same roughly stage of doing their

PhD in CS assuming you do have such a

friend how do you guys compare your two

experiences

So, so I can't say for CS, but I do have

friends uh who did do undergrad at

Berkeley and then are now doing some are

doing stats, some are doing physics PhD

in the US system and I think in the US

system at least for stats and um physics

the the advisor relationship is much

more individual because in particular in

China it's very common for these

professors the traditional departments

to have

Dozens of students for example one

professor he has 50 students

>> 50 PhD students or is it mix of masters

and PhD

>> mostly PhD and it's a whole stocks maybe

like

>> 30 to 40 PhD that's huge okay yes huge

and on top of that my professor is also

running a startup

>> so basically students aren't aren't even

able to reach them like we have um funny

funny story so so I walk to the lab and

then I saw my senior who's a fifth year

PhD about to graduate. He's like, "Oh, I

can't find our advisor." I'm like, "Oh,

he's teaching this class. Let me send

you the classroom so you can go find

him."

>> Yeah.

>> So, even the most senior have a very

hard time like contacting our advisor.

>> That sounds like a bad thing to me.

Doesn't sound like you're directly

learning from the professor. So, are you

learning from posttos or more senior

grad students in the group?

>> Yeah. So, I'm not learning directly from

the professor. Luckily the senior

students and the other PhD students

they're all they're already independent

research since they've gained those

skills in undergrad you're working with

other senior patient students and

posttos I can

>> yeah Alex jump in. Yeah.

>> Yeah. So um the way the traditional

Chinese professorship works is a little

bit different. So basically when you

come in as an assistant professor you

work under the lab of an associate

professor. So it's kind of like this

joint lab. So because your advisor

Justin is like a full or very high level

professor, he has some assistant

professors working under him. So you're

getting more of the advising from those

assistant professors.

And the other thing is um so Andrew Yao

is one person here who set up a couple

of departments the triple and the AI

college which more closely emulate the

US system where the assistant professors

are fully independent but most Chinese

universities have this system. So I'm in

the computer science department just

talked about the separate independent

colleges. So in the traditional

department such as computer science um

they have a they have a big professor

and then they have several professors

under him in the same lab.

>> Uh so for example my professor he's the

end of the lab and then under him there

are five other professors.

>> Got it.

>> Each do different directions.

>> Got it.

>> But even then because there's still so

many students and like one um because

our lab is now doing embodied AI and

this one professor has to manage around

30 students. So it's it's also uh not

much time to advise us.

>> This uh system, the traditional one

sounds a little bit more like the German

or Japanese system where there is often

a senior professor and then some junior

professors and some monster group

attached to those uh professors. But the

American system usually assistant

professors are pretty much independent

from day one um and generally would have

much smaller groups.

>> Yeah, I think that's true. They might

have taken the system directly from from

the Germans.

>> Yeah. So how do you how do you feel

about your fellow students? Like this is

many people would say the top university

in China. Undergraduates are highly

selected.

In the past I think it was true that the

top undergrads from Chinua would all

come to America or maybe to Oxford or

Cambridge or something for their PhDs,

but my understanding is a lot of them

now stay here. How do you feel about

your fellow grad students and how many

of them turned down an opportunity to

say go or or prefer to be here rather

than going to some US university for

their PhD? I would say now there's a

pretty decent amount because now the

conditions of China and China are quite

good for them. There are several top

undergrads in both YA class and in

computer science department who say they

don't want to go to the US even though

it's still the best because number one

it's too far they prefer to stay close

at home or like it's a new environment

it's uh too much of a change for them.

>> Yeah. So for example uh one of my

underassman he's a fourth year uh and he

uh wants to stay he wants to stay in

China for PhD and he he already got an

offer um and there's another one who

didn't get the offer from the lab so I

asked Alex to help him refer him to

another professor he got that offer but

at first the professor advised him to

apply to US universities and he really

didn't want to do he said it was yeah it

was too much of an ask for

>> okay some background for the listeners

So we're recording in the ST Yao

Mathematical Sciences Institute. So

that's Y AU. That Yao is a mathematician

who was a professor most of his career

at Harvard and then came to China and

now has set up several research

institutes here. And he created an

undergraduate college where the students

who are in that specially selected sub

college are typically pursue they're

going to pursue a PhD in math or

theoretical physics. There's a guy

called Andrew Yao who also was a

professor in the US I think for a long

time at Berkeley and Princeton um whose

main field is theoretical computer

science and he won touring prize. He

came back to China and has now

established a special Yao class YAO

class of some of the most talented math

and CS students in China. Um so we have

several very highly selected subpopuls

on campus. The overall population of

students here is highly selected, but

then you have even more highly selected

groups that like the kids in those

classes would have been like gold

medalists at the national level, math

olympiad or physics olympiad or CS

Olymp. So, it's a very select population

of students here. And the question I

want to ask Justin is if you take one of

those groups of kids and you say I'll

look at the top 20 kids graduating in a

particular year from one of those highly

selected groups. What fraction are going

to end up in the US and what fraction

are going to stay here?

>> Yeah. So for that STE class,

>> well they're they're signed up to do a

PhD here from the beginning. They have

the same.

>> Yeah. Let's do YAO class. So the and the

andreel class the class that class is

>> uh it it started off with 30 students I

forget what year back in 2007

>> but back then 100% of them like every

single one of them went to the US for a

PhD or or masters or just went there for

work and then eventually it expanded to

almost around 100 students now because

they combined three different classes

they combined they had they had three

directions they have theoretical

computer science

They have a quantum computing and have

an AI direction. Each of them were like

around 30 students per class. They just

combined it all. So they've expanded the

class to around 100 students now. And um

before co it was still um either 90% or

100% went to the US for PhD uh or work

and now it's around 50 50 to 60% go to

US and then the rest stay in China.

>> Okay. So that's that's an interesting

trend, right? and very pronounced of the

kids and those with that background what

fraction are actually going to get PhD

versus they just go and start a company

or do something in industry right away

>> yeah so right now or I guess based on

historical trends maybe we could say at

least 70% go to PhD maybe even 90%

>> I'd say 90

>> wow yeah I don't know if that's still

true in the US like I wonder what

fraction of the top say MIT CS CS grads

like Maybe a lot of them are just going

out and trying to start a company or

join a company right away.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Or join one of the big AI labs.

>> The Y class kids don't um go to PhD

before they would just go to quant like

what called the MIT.

>> I think more recently there are some

that go to the top labs like deepseek or

bite dance but it's still the most

common route for them to do PhD in the

US or continue PhD in China. But it

seems to be they're they're starting to

change perception as well. Now many of

the the fourth year undergrads in Y

class are thinking that oh PhD is

probably there's no point to do it

anymore because they've already

published so much as undergrads. They

have a PhD they don't need another one.

>> Right. Just to elaborate on that for the

audience. So through you I've met a

bunch of these kids and a lot of these

kids they're a senior in college and

they published a handful of papers

already or they've been one of the first

or first few authors on a number of

papers already. So they might even be I

I don't know what the typical

expectation is for us PhD students how

many papers they should have published

but but these kids seem very

accomplished to me.

>> Yeah. If we were to put a number on how

many papers a PhD program would accept

it's around three papers at top

conferences and most of them they like

have way more than three papers.

>> You're saying a lot of them hit that

when they're undergrads.

>> Most of them both first authors as

>> All right let me jump to Alex. So Alex

you are the professor here. uh you work

on AI and robotics. Um tell us a little

bit about your academic background and

how you ended up here.

>> Yeah, I'm uh Alex. I did my PhD in

Montreal. I guess as I was graduating, I

was interested in both uh industry and

faculty positions.

>> Can you just say you have a famous PhD

advisor?

>> Yeah, it's Benjamin. Yeah. I was

interested in faculty positions and I

had a co-orker from Microsoft research

Asia so that's in Beijing um who uh took

a faculty position at Pain his name is

Dha and I told him I was you know

serious about becoming a professor in

China and he said if you want to do it

uh first you know use the connection to

establish that you're serious and then

he said if it's a department uh headed

by Andrew Yao um this is the place to

Sorry. And if that doesn't work out, you

know, we could look for something else.

And it did work out. And I ended up

coming here to College of AI at Chinua.

I've been here for about a year and I

really like it so far. So I have or I

guess like five incoming PhD students at

my lab. I think they're really great.

Um, as Justin I guess alluded to, when

they come in, they typically have mem

paper. So they have some other kind of

substantial accomplishments and uh I

also have a have a pool of interns here.

So I would say the the energy here is

really really good. Like it's you're

constantly getting people who like want

to work on things or want to start

projects. A lot of students will start

really ambitious research projects even

their freshman or sophomore year.

>> Yeah. My impression from being here a

little bit is it's a super high energy

place. It reminds me of places like

Caltech and MIT where people really want

to do stuff and there's just tons of

talent just kind of floating around. One

thing I that did surprise me a little

bit which I think is kind of interesting

is I feel like you have a lot of

students here who who could do just very

purely theoretical CS or physics

research but they do like empirical AI

or kind of like deep learning type

research. Uh whereas I feel like maybe

that's less common in the US unless it's

changed recently because I feel like in

the US at least when I went to school

maybe there was a little bit of a

perception that like if you could just

do purely theoretical research you

should do that to like use that

comparative advantage. I don't even know

what you think about that.

>> The parallel in physics would be some

kids are going to be theoreticians and

some kids are going to be

experimentalists working in the lab. And

the working in the lab is a little it's

it's obviously it's more empirical and

it's a little more like in the neural

yeah in the nitty-gritty details and yes

there is some kind of like

classification like some kids end up in

one bucket and the other

>> and but sometimes like the very best

this is just physics experience. The

very best experimentalists are kids who

have the chomps to do theory

>> but they also have the hands to go in

the lab and really do stuff. And those

people are the ones who really can push

a field forward. Yeah. But so so there

may be an analog to that in CS.

>> So yeah, I have a comment about theory

in China versus the US. So when I was in

the US, I was more involved on the

theory side on AI as well in the math

and stats departments

and through [clears throat] that I uh I

got to know a ton of Chinese students

because actually most math departments

and stats departments even CS

departments most of most of the nation

students are Chinese and there seemed to

be a common consensus that the

theoretical research in the US was much

more mature in China. So even if there

are students in China who wanted to do

theory um they would have to go to the

US to do theory to do frontier theory

research or if they wanted to stay in

China then they will work on more

empirical research or engineering

research.

>> So theory in the US is ahead of theory

in China. Is that what you said?

>> Much like uh by quite a lot.

>> Okay.

>> Which is a common consensus among all

the Chinese researchers and ST even said

like in a in a speech that China is

behind by 40 years on mathematical

research research.

>> Good. Alex, I wanted to drill down on

what why were you interested in becoming

a professor in China?

Well, I guess I just felt like okay,

objectively here I can get really strong

students. I also feel like uh the

overline sorry the underlying economic

strength in China like the industry is

very good and I feel like eventually you

know it will support like world class

academics and you know I think it's

already kind of starting to happen but I

think there's a lot of room for growth

in the academia in China. I mean, I

guess also even just as a little kid

living in China, working in China was

something I was interested in doing. So,

the fact that I got a good opportunity

to do it is pretty exciting.

>> I mean, I definitely feel like here

there's a can do spirit and a kind of an

upward trajectory to everything. Whereas

in the US, it's like, can we like

maintain our position? Are we just

declining a little bit? It's just very

different uh vibes in the two places.

How do you feel about like some of these

crazy college rankings like US News and

stuff they're already putting Chinua

like ahead of all the other like

engineering like I think like in the

engineering ranking for universities

like some of these crazy rankings have

Chinua number one in the world. Is that

crazy or is it is it is it reasonable?

Well, here's one way I might think about

it. So, you know, if you bracket people

by like their age or seniority, I think

if you take the people who are like,

let's say, 20 to 30, I think at Chinua,

they're as strong or maybe even as about

as strong or maybe even a little

stronger than the best US universities.

But then as you kind of go towards the

more senior cohort like the people who

have like 30 or 40 years of experience I

think if you compare that cohort in the

US to China I think we don't have as

many like extremely senior extremely

experienced people and I think that also

goes to what Justin was saying about our

theoretical research being a little bit

less mature. I think that's an area to

work on.

>> Yeah. In terms of what my students say

in terms of their preference rankings,

they usually say like the top five

schools in the US are like pretty

competitive with Shenua. So like I think

it's like Harvard, MIT, Princeton,

Berkeley, Stanford roughly that pool.

Yeah.

>> But I think below that it's pretty

widely agreed that generally

>> should want someone preferred.

>> Got it.

>> I think they swap out Harvard for CN.

They call it the big four. big four big

four CMU MIT Stanford Berkeley and then

now you add in

>> NLP you see for like five

>> I think it'll depend a little bit on the

area because in my opinion if you want

to do certain things like embodied AI I

think you could still make the case for

Shinguan even over those universities

just because I mean you have so much of

a robotics industry here compared to the

US

>> that's just my opinion

>> by the way my my experience

in having been a physics researcher for

a long time now is that yes the older

generation you would very seldom find a

truly world class guy here because most

of those guys would take if they could

get jobs in the US or elsewhere they or

you mean in Europe they would go there

but it's the younger group where you're

starting to see really world-class

talent that stays here

>> I think one of the tipping future

tipping points will be when they feel

confident that they can really fully

compete without relying on people who

went out to the US and got their PhD or

post-doal training and came back that

can fully rely on the people that are

just trained 100% within China. I think

famously like the of the deepseek

authors like in one of their early

papers that caused like the deepseat

moment. I think all of those people had

been like 100% trained in China or

something like that. So that was like

maybe one of the first indications of

that tipping point.

I would say for the professors who we

hire in our department, I think the

majority have done their PhDs overseas

often in the United States at good top

universities, but some of them also done

their PhD here in China.

>> Yeah. So, I think that's the that's the

tipping point that we're crossing now.

>> I think it's just a joke, but they

called the um the domestic PhD student

the tuber, right? about

the two in two is a

rough country bump.

>> Can you say it again? What was the

meaning?

>> Two means dirt. Two means dirt. Like a

farmer farmer and a young

international type sophisticated

which is

the redneck boss of China.

>> Yeah.

>> I think it's just a joke. Yes.

>> And it'll change over time. Yeah.

>> So this was before my time in

theoretical physics. But there was a

moment. So Oppenheimer was the first

American who really learned quantum

mechanics.

>> So at the time when Oppenheimer, if you

remember the biopic, which was really a

really good film,

>> he had to go to Europe actually to get

that education. And when he came back

from Europe, he was the only guy, he was

the only American professor who could

really teach quantum mechanics at the

frontier level. and he started the first

school of real really u mature school of

theoretical physics and he literally

split his time. He would spend half the

year at Berkeley and half the year at

Caltech because he was so in such

demand. They wanted him in both places

and that was so that was like just prior

to World War II and that was when

America was just like nowhere in terms

of cutting edge science. But then we

rapidly just one more generation we

caught up and went to the lead. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I had heard the same thing

that for a while there was a perception

that like okay the US has good industry

they can do good appliance stuff but if

you want to do like theory or basic

research you got to be in Europe is 100%

analogous to the current situation so

the experimentalists in America were

good they could get stuff working we had

the industrial revolution we had become

by then the number one industrial power

but in terms of the highle theory we did

not have it and it almost it seems like

there's a very paralle whole thing going

on right now with China obviously the

rest of the world.

>> Yeah, I have a comment about the

rankings. So I think many people outside

of the academic system don't really

understand the rankings. It also has to

be split between like undergrad and

graduate. So so without a doubt

undergraduate students are the best in

the world. I would say on on average

much better than the best universities

in the US. But this doesn't actually

mean that the education quality itself

is higher. I just use this the filtering

so they can filter better students. But

then for graduate it's still without a

doubt that the front like most of the

frontier research is still in the US

although China is catching up very

quickly. That's why we see uh that most

of the PhD students in the US are

actually Chinese because they're high

quality students. Do you get the feeling

that we're turning back to Gabriel now

who is just finishing up his

undergraduate degree. Do you feel like

the competition you had to deal with in

the last four years here is pretty much

the toughest CS competition at any

university in the world average level?

>> Yes. Every single one of my classmates

are they're brilliant, right? Because

they had to go over the gal filter and

they were at the top in the province. Um

but you made a comment during lunch

about um what you think about once you

get past this gal filter, does this mean

that they're just going to be the top of

their class at? Relatively speaking, I

did the IV. I was good at the IV. I

wasn't top one in all of Hong Kong,

right? But that if if you go according

to your original theory, that would

imply, you know, last place in my

cohort. Honestly, that's what I was

expecting. But that's not what ended up

happening. As in my grade right now,

even after having to acclimate myself to

the Chinese environment, I'm like smack

in the middle, like 50%. My take on this

is yes, they're all brilliant students,

but a lot of them, they're like much

more acclimated to the testing

environment. And the main issue for them

is not that they can't get their heads

around class work, but rather it's like

social skills or just like really

self-disipline. The really really

impressive people uh Chinese people are

the ones who aren't just smart cuz they

all are, but they're like socially adept

as well. Like once you get both of those

Yeah. those are what you get as like the

top PhD students that say in the go run.

>> Yeah. I mean that some of these

superstar kids that Justin you

introduced me to last time I was here.

Those kids clearly like they're clearly

smart. They've done a bunch of research.

They've published a bunch of research as

undergrads and but when you interact

with them they're pretty polished. Like

you could tell like and some of those

people had already like raised money for

their startups even their they were like

seniors in college and they had already

raised money. Now, now part of that

ability to raise money here is I think

the investors here still have quite a

lot of respect for academia. And so like

they'll just like write a check. I think

it seems like they'll write a check

because you're some big professor at

Chinua or some big professor at Chinua

is saying this is my best student and

the the venture investors will just

write a check. It's a little bit

different in the US. Maybe that would

happen like around Stanford or

something. But but even then like the

VCs are thinking more about like can

this guy actually run a business? Are

they a hungry entrepreneur? I don't

really care what this old professor

says. It it seems like there's a slight

difference in the cultures. I don't know

that you would necessarily know about

that, but that that seems that's my

impression.

>> Yeah, I have some interesting comments

to say about that. So in particular

about um the respect for academia or

academics in China that's actually a

major reason why most of the students

even the top students they actually

pursue PhD instead of like going into

industry or doing a startup is because

of the prestige of uh doing a PhD purely

because of the social prestige. The

issue is whether um it's because of that

respect for academia that one of the

best routes here to get venture funding

is to distinguish yourself in academia

and have some big professor say hey this

is my most promising student give him

money for a robotics startup

>> I think that happens I think that sort

of happens a little bit like around

Stanford or something because you have a

confluence of one of the top CS

departments and like lots of bags of

money just around but I don't think it's

actually true at like Caltech or MIT or

some of these other places like you

could be like a really awesome student

but there isn't necessarily a bag of

money that's just like tossed your way

for being really good at academic stuff.

>> Okay. I I remember what I wanted to say

about that as well. So so in ch in

Chinese society among ordinary people

there's also like an explicit worship of

a chinua and ping university

undergraduates

um because of how hard it is to get in.

So like I I had a friend I made um in

the US. He's doing a math PhD. I met him

at a conference in the US um and he's

doing a math PhD at the University of

Bon and Jurian and he came back to

Beijing to visit and I invited him here

and when he came here he was like a how

do say he was praising the undergraduate

students of Chinua he's like so amazed

he's like oh like we treat these people

as gone in China

>> the social prestige of Chinua and Ping

University graduates is at the very top

>> yeah I I mean I would almost guess that

if your if your prestige that you derive

just from being an undergrad here is

enough. Then you wouldn't feel like you

have to get the PhD to pat it. Right?

Back in my day, this is totally

different era. But there was a time when

Harvard, MIT, and Caltech were by far

the most prestigious

undergrad degrees to have. And it used

to be set among people at those schools.

Like these are the only schools where

you just need that undergraduate degree.

If you just say, "Hey, BS Caltech or BS

SB MIT or you know, whatever." Harvard,

you know, suma at Harvard, that's it.

You don't need to go get your PhD

because people just assume you're

smarter than most PhDs, actually. I

think that's all gone now. That's like a

bygone world of 50 years ago or

something. But you could end up like

that in China, too, I think. So, so you

could have more and more kids who are

coming out of Chinuan. They're just

like, I'm just gonna start my company.

I'm not going to go to like live in

Pittsburgh at CMU for four years and you

know just to and write some more papers

just to get a PhD behind my name.

>> Yeah. So I have some more interesting

comments about that. So on on the

startup side instead of doing a

undergraduates

um what they do now more practically

speaking is they they just continue

doing PhD and then while they're doing

their PhD their PhD they can pull

funding by using the name of a PhD

student and the procedure of their

adviser to attract funding and do the

startup and secondly like oh why not

just quit why I still do PhD I think

that's I think that's something quite

common in Chinese culture They they like

to get the next best.

>> Yeah.

>> They continue to strive or

>> compete in the rat race.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes.

>> It's it's nature. It's evolution.

>> Like Yeah. Because um Yes. Even though

they have the team undergrad, but like

since year one as an undergrad, they

were just thinking, "Holy crap, we got

to get this. We got to go get the

masters." And to get the masters, you

have to be like top 60% of your

undergrad class. And that's all they

thought about like three years.

>> Wow. Wow. So it's like always there's

always one more hoop to jump through or

one more

>> and the reason is not even because of

like oh once I get the masters then I

can get a better job is because oh look

that's what everyone else everyone else

is doing mine doesn't look through as

well you know.

>> Wow

Alex you're

>> I also see a lot of students who I feel

like can kind of uh hustle around the

noun. Is that how you say?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So like even if they did badly on

the GA and they went to a lower ranked

undergrad, they still work hard, get

some good papers, go to a top PhD or go

to a good company. So I don't know. I

don't feel like it's the end of the

world for everyone.

>> And I feel that's healthy. Like, you

know, back in the day, the way we used

to say it in the US is you could be a

total [ __ ] in high school, but you

could still go to a community college

for a couple years and learn, you know,

calculus and physics and stuff and then

transfer to a pretty good state

university, transfer to the University

of Illinois, which is actually really

good engineering school, and then like,

so there's no there's no point at which

you're totally out of it, you know? or

even if you didn't have a good

undergraduate degree, you're like, "Oh,

but let me go work at Loheed Martin, and

if I'm really good at my job, I can

still make my way up." So, I think it's

healthy to give people many ways to

succeed, even if at one particular stage

at age 18, they were not up to snuff.

They were playing too many video games,

but you can you can still make it up at

some other stage. I think that's just

healthy. I would be alarmed if like

there was no way to the top except by

jumping through all the perfect hoops,

you know, at every stage of your life.

That would that would probably that's

was related to my question at lunch

today that I was asking is like is like

it are there kids who were not quite as

distinguished when they finished high

school but managed to get in here but

they still turn out to be the top kid

when they're actually allowed to do

research or something like that. So that

it's healthier if that's possible.

>> Yeah. So that that's definitely

possible. My my lab mate that we met

today is literally one of them. Yeah.

>> He's like the top he's the top

researcher

>> in our lab as a first year and also

published so many papers as an undergrad

and he didn't go to Chinua or Pi.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. But but actually the perfect coup

right now in Chinese society is not like

Chihuahua undergrad to Chihuahua PhD.

It's it's do Chinua undergrad and then

you go to MIT you stand for Berkeley for

PhD.

>> Yeah.

>> And then and then you stay there

>> and then eventually come back. or not.

>> Yeah, I think most of them don't want to

come back. So, so it's like in China,

the perfect group isn't to go from like

uh like a you do you perform really bad

in high school and then you go to a bad

university and then you go to Chinua.

It's like they actually prefer you go

like to the US at the end. That's that's

still like a perception Chinese society

that's the optimal path.

So I my purpose of having this

discussion with you with you guys here

is that like for most people in the US

they're even people who are in technical

subjects or academia they have this

sense that like US is competing with

China and it's it's a serious

competition the Chinese have their

strengths and the Americans have their

strength and maybe they are starting to

beat us in some important ways but very

few Americans understand like what is a

Chinese university like what is the

talent selection system in China what is

the preference stack back of a

22-year-old very bright Chinese kid.

Like I think most Americans don't

understand any of that and that's what I

was trying to elaborate. Is there some

aspect of our discussion that I didn't

cover that you think the audience the

manifold audience would you know be

informed by if we discussed it? Any

anything that you think uh we didn't

cover in that bundle of stuff that we

should talk about? I think we should

emphasize more just the hoops like

firstly how to get into undergraduate

but actually before that how to get into

high that's a good point that I never

really thought about in Hong Kong. So,

first of all, to get into high school in

China, you have to take the phone call.

So, the middle school test.

>> Yes.

>> And if you [ __ ] that up, 50% of people

[ __ ] that up. Not [ __ ] it up, but like

just don't do that.

>> They just don't get into a top high

school.

>> Not even know high school. They don't

get into high school. They go to a

vocational training school. And when you

get into vacation training school, you

don't even take the dog and you just go

directly to what they call a dun where

you learn like practical skills like

factory work and stuff. So once you're

on that track, it's kind of impossible

for you to jump back into academia.

>> Yeah.

>> Let's say you do get into high school,

then you take the G call and went to G

call. Um yeah, you still have to be good

enough to even get to a university, not

even. So they separate them based off.

So there's vocational schools, there's

barb, there's even, and then if you're

in the top 5% that's a 211 and then if

you're in the top one, two% you're 95.

And then 95 to 30 something of them. And

then the top two are they covered up.

>> Okay. Just to elaborate. So nine they

have these are classifications

of universities.

>> Yes. Four year

>> right. And four year universities. And

if you score top 5% on the gao

>> around yeah depending on how

>> roughly you can get into one layer.

>> You can get to the 211s.

>> Okay.

>> Lesser than a 95 when it's still

considered a like that good school.

>> Okay. But the next layer which is how

many schools are in the next layer? 95

is like 30 something.

>> Okay. So, top 30ish universities in

China.

>> Yes.

>> Roughly speaking, all the kids getting

into those are top 1 to 2% on Galo.

>> Which is actually already crazy because

on the US exams like the ceilings are

usually only like

>> well you the abs if you actually get a

perfect score on the SAT it's like few

per thousand kids or one per thousand

kids. But you're you're getting toward

the ceiling of what the American system

can resolve just to get into one of

these top 30 schools in China or at

least to get into Beijing or uh Chinua

University. Right. So this the system

here is very very elitist, right?

Elitist and meritocratic based on one

test.

>> Yes. Exactly. So most people get into

university based on alcohol. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And then I think for grad school

applications it's so if you're at a

great university already um there's

actually two systems. One is based off

your undergraduate GPA if you're good

enough you get to B yet so stay in the

school or or actually you can v to other

schools. So let's say you're like some

other 95 if you're really good at top

one of your school and you get to go to

bed. um or if you're already in that

good enough and the other system is

called and so that's more the social

mobility part of it and that's basically

we don't even look at your undergrad

like GPA you can think of it like

another call for after your undergrad

degree but that's like that's extremely

hard as well but because less people

take it they consider that's why they

consider master degrees like less

prestigious than undergrad degrees but

yeah if you're not from like your top

university for chin boiling to the best

universities you can technically take

bats but even better ought to be like

top five% to even be considered

>> okay so there's a GPA based and also a

further exam based way to get into the

graduate programs here

>> maybe that's enough about like this not

everybody's actually that interested in

like what the hell the minutia of like

the Chinese academic system

>> let's talk a little bit about the about

competitiveness

between China and the US right which is

a topic that's often we often discuss on

this podcast, but from what you guys can

see within what you could argue is a top

university in China or at least the top

technological university in China and

the companies around it here at Beijing.

Any observations about where you think

US China competition is going like the

technology and AI anything? Yeah. One

thing is I think the US is really being

held back by its lack of highquality

infrastructure because I think you have

a lot of universities in the United

States and they're held back by the fact

that they're not located in a city with

like top tier industry. So like you have

Carnegie Melon top computer science

school but it's in Pittsburgh.

um UIC,

Illinois,

um uh I guess Georgia Tech is in

Atlanta. And I feel like, you know, in

China because you have the highspeed

rail, it feels like you can get to any

city within a day and just saying like,

"Hey, go to Shanghai or go to another

city," that's like nothing for me. But

if I have to, you know, take a flight,

that's kind of like a big trip. So I

feel like you have a lot more like

interc city collaborations in here and I

feel like more of that talent is

unlocked. So I do think in the US

there's a risk that um it's really going

to become overly dependent on like just

the Bay Area and maybe maybe just New

York or Boston. Yeah. there's a chance

that if that Bay Area companies lose the

really competitive edge, the US might be

in serious trouble,

>> right? So, let's break that down a

little bit. So, here they have a

high-speed rail system,

>> which is awesome. And I don't think

people really appreciate in the States

what that means. So, like, you know,

like every hour or every 30 minutes,

like there's probably a train,

high-speed train between here and

Shanghai.

>> And you get on the train, it's not

stressful. Well, it's not like the

airport where you got to go through. I

mean, there's a little bit of security

like they are. You do put your bags on a

conveyor belt at one point,

>> but it's you you get to the train

station like not you don't have to get

there hours ahead, right? You can kind

of cut it a little tighter.

>> You get on the train, it's super

comfortable. There's even a business

class car where you can lie flat if you

want, take a nap.

>> You get there, you're arriving at the

city center of the other city. So just

doortodoor

um you have access to many other cities

with five million plus people within

like a few hours of here and you could

do it as a day trip. You could go there

and come back and that just makes it

easier for you to collaborate amongst

cities. And do you think though that

means there's less of a concentration

cuz I still feel like even in China like

most of the tech is okay around here

where we are

>> a lot of the big a lot of the best most

promising companies are here there's a

bunch in Shenzen

>> there's some in Hanzo because Alibaba is

there and Deepseek is there and then

Shanghai I guess Shanghai is SMIC but it

is still pretty localized. Is there a

sense of like these other these cities

that most Americans wouldn't be that

familiar with? There's there's plenty of

high-tech activity there going because

of this infrastructure.

>> That's an interesting question. I mean,

I wouldn't say Hung Joe is actually

decently far from Shanghai.

>> It is. Yeah. Well, about an hour on the

highspeed rail. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I have some comments on that. So in

particular to to promote more even

tempor technological development across

China's geography the government has a

national plan called uh east data west

compute where they build data centers

out in the western

>> provin where there's lots of solar as

well

>> a lot of solar a lot of cheap land cheap

electricity bunch of subsidies there to

provide more jobs and development

>> and and also for national security

reasons um uh because ship manufacturing

is such a capital intensive industry

before it was mostly concentrated in

Shanghai, the government actually

forcefully moved some to the central

regions in China such as Shandu um to

develop word chip uh chip industry

there. So Shandu is also considered a

develop tech hub there although not in

AI but in chip manufacturing military

technology. So I mean aside from

infrastructure I think that the

government because a government things

are more stateled here than they are in

the states in the US. If it's stateled

then they might say like yeah let's

encourage this industry to be in Chandu

or let's encourage this industry to be

in Chongqing or something like that. So

it does get spread out more than just

letting like everything like the free

the market maybe just concentrates

everything in the Bay Area and the

government doesn't try to do anything to

counter that. here that would maybe try

to do something to spread it out more

and maybe that's the thing that's

manifested here.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> There's another thing which really

confused me before I came to China but

which I just started to understand which

is if you look at like the total market

cap of let's say the Chinese companies

it's so much smaller than the market cap

of the American

>> companies tiny. Yeah. But then if you

look at like measures of productivity

like what they actually produce the

Chinese companies seem to produce more

in the aggregate depending on how you

measure it but they definitely do.

>> So I think what's going on you guys can

let me know if you agree but the market

cap it's kind of like an integral of the

future profits like the future dividends

they return. So if you have a situation

of low competition, like you have a few

monopolies, they're very profitable,

maybe they don't produce as much, but

they they return huge dividends and they

have a big market cap. Whereas I feel

like in China, they try to induce a high

level of competition and they help new

companies to keep entering. So you have

a huge number of companies, you have

relatively low profit margins, but you

have a lot of production. So let's let's

hear from up to in economics terms what

China doing is flattening the supply

curve more and more supply in there so

that the supply curve is almost

horizontal and when it looks like that

then you know if you taken um you know

beginning micro economics uh what it is

is the supplier surplus that little

triangle in the supply looks nearly zero

>> it just goes away everything is that hu

triangle that is you know above the

price line which will be the consumers

of us. So that's what you have in China.

In the US system, uh what where you know

you don't have a very flat supply, we

have a few participants in the market.

>> So the consumer surplus is less and the

supplier surplus is a lot more. So like

an outlet market

>> and the other benefits cost and benefits

of both systems which to me is just uh

whatever surplus you you just maximize

surpluses uh however you do it and u it

appears to be you know when you have

Tesla is worth 10 times more than by

uh you know the electric vehicle

penetration in the US is like whatever

5% margin when it's like 60% of the

market in China. That that's a failure.

You know, that's pretty much a failure

of um of the EV industry in the US. It's

not a success that pesa is worth 10

times what is in terms of how an

economist would look at how business

would look at it. They would say, well,

>> yeah, I I agree with you, Alex. It's a

question of what the society is

optimizing for. And if the society says,

"We want consumers to benefit, so we

want to maximize competition between

companies.

>> We're not going to allow monopolies to

extract monopoly rents from the system."

Well, then there aren't as many great

stock investments cuz what's my best

stock investment? Get into some company

that's going to become a monopoly that's

going to generate wild um earnings

numbers year after year after year in a

predictable way. Then yeah, that thing

suddenly becomes a trillion dollar

company. But that's not necessarily

greater for the consumers, right? So

it's it's basically that conflict. The

question though is like if you're racing

to get to AGI,

maybe you want to be the system that

will allow the AGI monopoly to whoever

wins the race and then that guarantees

your companies win the race because so

much capital ends up pursuing those

opportunities in the US and so little

capital is pursuing the AI opportunities

in China by comparison. I mean certainly

compared to the rest of the world it's a

lot of resources but compared to America

the amount of resources flowing toward

AI is like onetenth here as in the US

and yet they're still able to kind of

kind of keep up.

>> I believe that's something what Nick

Land argues.

So yeah, so Nick land would he has a

term techno capitalism which is that you

know capital produces awesome technology

um that technology makes a lot of money

which produces more capital and they

just have this feedback loop that's

running out of control and part of it

his observation is it's out of the

control there's no like it may seem like

Elon is the genius or you know this guy

is the Sam Alman is the but actually

what's happening is this machine is just

like is just like pushing capital toward

more tech devel velopment and then more

tech development creates more capital

and the thing just works on its own and

the people are kind of irrelevant. The

individual people it's just that the

dynamics will eventually then lead to

like super intelligence or something.

>> I guess one thing is I feel like the

Chinese startups because they're a lot

smaller like the Alibaba they're a

little bit more afraid to pursue like a

novel like product market set like

something where they don't know if

there's a market yet. So like one

example is like Anthropic kind of took

the lead in making like a a complete

software program to help you with

coding. So even though like the Quen

model for example, you know, the

intelligence level is like roughly the

same, the coding ability is roughly the

same because they didn't have like the

fully fleshed product. People don't want

to use it as much. But I kind of feel

like once they observe that like this is

something people will pay for. Yeah.

They'll build the fully fleshed out

product and I think they'll catch up.

>> I agree. I think we're seeing that right

now. There'd be a fast following by

Moonshot with Kimmy and with Quen and a

coding rig for Quinn. That fast

following could lead to a competition

where the a lot of the profit margins

are competed away for anthropic. Yeah,

>> I feel like most investors, global

investors, there's still a huge US side

bias where they just don't want to put

money behind the Chinese companies

>> for whatever reason. I mean, it could be

like, oh, the Chinese government will

never let these guys make as much money

as could be something that equilibrates

out like in the next 10 or 20 years or

could just be like just stuck like that

for a long time.

>> I think one major component would be

China China trying to develop it

semiconductor supply chain. That's

probably the most important piece in

China's AI alone.

>> Yeah.

>> At any point in time, if they continue

to rely on Nvidia, it's not a reliable

source of

>> Yeah. Now, we we've discussed there was

a group of American AI researchers and

journalists who came through here, came

through Beijing. I think you you met

with them, right, Justin?

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Yeah. And I think I I I looked at all

the reports that they read that they

wrote based on their trip here. And you

know a lot of them I think thought that

the GPU sanctions uh or controls weren't

good because they kept reporting that

the Chinese companies the number one

thing they heard from the Chinese IDI

researchers is we we wish we could have

more Nvidia GPUs. Do do you want to

comment on that? Is that is that a fair

assessment of the situation?

>> Yeah, I would say that's pretty fair.

Basically all Chinese would want more uh

Nvidia GPUs. Yeah. is is the issue the

money like so so there's two things

going on here one is the Chinese

companies don't have as much money which

we just discussed so even if they had

the GPUs they might not be able to do

the monster training runs that openai

andropic can do the other issue is just

if you have the money you still can't

buy the GPUs because the US government

is not allowing it like which which of

those two factors is actually more

decisive

>> it it depends on the company so for the

startups it's definitely the money and

for the large companies then then it

might be the supply although uh it seems

they are still able to get a ton of

GPUs.

>> Yeah. See, one of my one of the guys

that I've had on the podcast, a guy

called TP Wong, who's a software

developer himself, but also very close

observer of AI and military competition

between US and China. He he said his

reaction to Nathan Lambert and all these

guys, Jasmine Sun, Jasmine Sun, I think

I introduced her to you. was one of the

reporters who was here, one of the

writer. So his response is like look

they only interviewed basically startup

companies they didn't actually did they

meet with like Alibaba people did they

meet with bite dance people because TB

Wong would say those guys have very deep

much deeper pockets and it's unclear

whether they really are GPU poor so that

that that was TB Wong's reaction. I

don't know the answer myself actually.

>> Yeah. So, so for my lab who's currently

working at BES, he's able to get like

any GPU he wants. Yeah.

>> So, so it doesn't seem like they're GPU,

>> right? I mean, one of the secondary

things I would invite people to study is

the amount of Nvidia sales to Taiwan,

Malaysia, Singapore, all of these

countries which don't produce any models

also as far as I can tell don't like

produce a lot of inference tokens,

right? So, what what are these GPUs

doing in these countries? Even Taiwan.

So Taiwan is is one of the biggest in

terms of numerical purchases of GPUs

from Nvidia. But where do those where do

those GPUs go? I think they get put in a

suitcase and the guy gets on a plane for

Shanghai. And that's where I think the

GPU actually ends up because I can't go

to Taiwan and find anybody training a

monster model. I can't go to Taiwan and

find anybody running a monster model,

providing tokens. So, what the hell are

these GPU, you know, billions of dollars

of GPU sales to Taiwan, to Malaysia, to

Singapore? Where are these things?

Singapore does have some uh data centers

and but like the data centers in

Malaysia, like I wonder if they're just

doing computations for white dance

people or your friend or or whatever.

So, so I I actually I actually don't

know for the people that have the money

in China enough to pay for the compute,

do they have trouble getting it? Do they

have trouble getting the latest Nvidia

GPUs whether in in country or like

virtually by by running the jobs in

Malaysia or running the jobs in Taiwan

or something like that? I don't know the

answer to that question. I don't think

that group that came here really got to

the bottom of that.

>> I'll give I'll give an anecdote from

from the founder of Zai who's also a

professor at Chima. His name is Tia.

And so I did ask him, oh why don't you

use B200s? and basically said, "Oh, you

couldn't get."

>> Yeah, but they did have H100 stockpile

from several years staff, so they could

use that to train their moms.

>> So, yeah. So, I just don't know the

answer. So, maybe that in his case, he

can't get like he would like to get the

B200, but he can't.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> One thing I can add is, you know, in

model training, it's kind of a high-risk

thing. So I think even if like the

Ascent GPU is of equally good quality,

people are afraid of switching to

something that's less established and

less tested.

>> I think another thing we might see in

this computing catchup process is like

maybe the first thing to really catch up

will be like the gaming GPU.

Then you'll see the inference GPUs catch

up. So more people will use the Chinese

the ascent for ging or sorry for

inference and then maybe post training

fine-tuning will catch up and then

pre-training might be the very last

thing to catch up. I think one of the

important things is that now that

deepseek is fully optimized for the

Huawei architectures at least for

inference like that is a big development

and my understanding is the pre-training

which requires the really excellent

networking that Nvidia provides is

increasingly a smaller and smaller

portion of the total compute that's

involved in AI because there's a bunch

of inference which is generating tokens

and there's a bunch of stuff like in

post training where it isn't really

you're not really updating all the

weights you're just updating small

subsets of the weights and so the

bandwidth uh aspects of the hardware are

not as important

>> so I think the the place where Nvidia

has its biggest advantage is like

shrinking

>> fraction of the total amount of compute

involved in AI that that's my impression

so any other uh observations you want to

make about competitiveness between US

and China it doesn't have to be about AI

or tech it could be about just like the

day-to-day when Han Fetto when you were

on the podcast earlier, we talked about

the convenience of how how nice it is to

live in China, like the food delivery,

the good food, everything's so

inexpensive. Any anybody want to comment

on that aspect of it? What what your

daily life is like here compared to what

it would be like in Montreal or

somewhere else? Oh, I guess before we go

on about the life, I think I think one

province or one university to definitely

watch out for in China is this

university in Amway called USC,

University of Science and Technology of

China. This university is uh producing

some of the worldass like uh chip

engineers and um one of the top memory

companies in China called Ching Memory

Technology CXMT is just based out of

there as well. Yeah, I I think for

people in physics, we've been aware of

USC for a long time because although

it's out in the middle of nowhere, it's

been one of the most excellent Chinese

universes for a long time. In fact, in

fact, I would actually say, you know,

Bay Chima and the USC, at least from a

physics perspective, are probably the

the top universities. USC has been good

for a long time, and they also had a

genius program for a long time. So they

were admitting kids to USDC at age 15 or

16

>> for for a long time. And so like a lot

of the best people that we would see in

the US were not Chinua Bay kids. They

were actually USC kids who had gone to

college when they were 15. So that

that's that's been around for 30 years

or more.

>> Yeah, that definitely makes sense on the

physics. I think even the electrical

engineer side. Yeah. And then on the AI

side, it would be Chinua Piking and then

Shanghai gel. Yeah. Which has their

AC and glass. Yeah.

>> And there's also Zaha is supposed to be

very inj

supposed to be quite good. So

>> So the urban layout and the way the

roads work is super weird if you're from

the US for example. So a lot of people

like to ride these little two wheel

scooters around. Like they're always

electric. They're super cheap. But it's

just funny to see a whole group of

people riding around in these things.

But to make it work, you know, they have

big bike lanes and then they have really

wide sidewalks and then people park

their two wheelers in the sidewalk

>> on the sidewalk.

>> And then also the urban layout of

Beijing is super weird because they

basically stuffed all the universities

into the top left corner of the city. So

you got like Shinua, Chinese Academy of

Sciences, Pecking, Renman. So this I

don't know. It's very unusual to just

have all the universities stacked.

>> It's a little bit like Boston, Cambridge

in the US where it's like there's so

many colleges in that town and this

Haidan this this northwest is it

northwest part of Beijing is like that.

It's like that's where all the

universities are and they're pretty

close to each other.

>> Yeah. But not just only the universities

but the political centers here as well

>> and the tech companies. Yeah. Yeah. You

know, I was going to say that um

this electric bike culture is very

unique here. I I was talking to Kaiser

Gua Kaiser Qu. Um and he says he gets

the best way to actually get around

Beijing is just to ride around in his I

forgot the name of it's like electric

turtle or there's some name for what he

has. It's just some classic like

electric bike and he just rides it

around Beijing and you avoid the traffic

that way.

>> Yeah. Yeah. cuz you can kind of go

anywhere with the electric scooter cuz

you can do sidewalks, lightly or the

main roads,

>> whereas cars and pedestrians, you're

kind of limited to just one of three.

>> So, China's very safe. It's very safe.

There's low crime rate and everything.

But the the most dangerous thing I

always tell my friends, if you heard

that I was killed in an accident in

China. I was killed I was killed by an

like a delivery guy on an electric

scooter who just hit me while I was on

the sidewalk. And that's like the one

dangerous aspect I find.

>> It's it's also funny. Most people don't

don't wear helmets.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, the the delivery guys wear Yeah.

>> I think they just they just changed the

log to like force it like this week.

>> Yeah. I just someone just told me you

have to wear a helmet down below.

>> That's one of my friends that took it.

>> Yeah,

>> I'm interested.

>> So I think that electric bike culture is

coming to the US and it's an example of

something that actually although most

Americans don't realize it, it

originated in China and now it's coming

to the US. So now you can buy inex

relatively inexpensive electric bikes in

the US. They're all made in China and

it's becoming a thing where like people

who have a slightly longer commute would

get an electric bike. Yeah.

>> And ride it, you know, and so that

that's like coming to the US now.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> I I wanted to imagine like the car

culture is so ingrained in America that

they just want to change it,

>> you know. I think it it's only going to

come to certain like cities probably or

campuses where people But I see more and

more electric bikes now. I mean in

Berkeley I saw a lot of electric bikes.

>> Oh yeah. So the universities, they're

starting to have these electric bikes

because of the ch the Chinese students

there.

>> Oh, that could be it. That could be the

vector. That can be like balling. Yeah.

>> Wait, weather has got to be a factor,

too. Cuz if you have ice on the road,

electric scooter be so scary.

>> Yeah,

>> they somehow they somehow manage it.

>> No, Beijing has really dry winter, so

there's usually not ice on the road.

>> Yeah, it may not work in Montreal.

[laughter] I've done it.

>> Okay. Anything else?

>> I don't want just just a practical thing

for Gabriel. If you are a high school

student in the US, um what what kind of

student would you recommend apply to

Chinese universities and what

preparation do you think you recommend

they do say a couple years out?

>> Oh, that's a that's an interesting

question. I think um they should

definitely at least be interested in

China. That's prere regarding Chinese

language. I think it's definitely better

to have prep. I wouldn't say it's like

completely uh bad to have any prep at

all as I don't think allows foreign

students to do like a one year language

course like before you go on to start

your actual university degree. So T1

actually actively recruiting a lot of

just like foreign foreign people. So

they're that's one of their goals

because they seem to have a lot of like

Chinese people with foreign passports

try to just come back. But yeah, sort of

actively trying to recruit these

actually for more on people.

>> I I guess the main thing is Oh, my my

friend did recommend this. Hopefully,

you're interested in STEM and you're

actually interested in research. If

you're here for just like a humanities

major, um you won't get nearly as much

out of it. I think

>> my my wife's a professor of literature

and film and she she's going to be on

sbatical at Chinua this fall. So, so

hopefully there is some humanities here.

Um, she's been actually a visitor at

Beijing University and now at Chinua.

So, we'll see how they compare to the

humanities.

>> Does she do like I don't know oriental

literature or is

>> her her focus is mainly Yeah. modern

Chinese literature.

>> Oh, that would get a lot. [laughter]

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> I guess I have some extra advice for

that for those high school students. So,

make sure you really know how to speak

Chinese and you can make friends with

Chinese people.

>> Yes. You got to be social. I think I

think you're a good example.

>> So, so there's a very clear split in

Chinua

among the internationals. Even among

many of the um so-called uh overseas

Chinese who can speak a little bit of

Chinese, they still don't interact much

or at all with uh domestic Chinese

students. And I feel like I can even see

this case among Malaysian students who

are they they grow up in a Chinese

schooling system. they see Chinese all

their lives, but even then they have

some trouble like u interacting with the

Chinese domestic students. So, so you

can imagine how hard it is for people

who don't speak Chinese more at all. But

I think I think Chinese students are

very friendly and they're very happy to

be friends with the outside people. So,

I I would encourage people to really

just reach out to Chinese people and try

to try to be friends. And and and a very

interesting person I met here is he's

like a just a pure pure-blooded

American, white American from Tennessee.

And uh he was working in the battery

industry in the US for a few years. And

one day his Chinese coworker was like,

"You teach me English, I'll teach you

Chinese." He's like, "Okay, yeah, let's

do that." And he he studied Chinese for

like a year and then like very intensely

for a year and then he came to Chinua

for his masters in material science and

he only exclusively hangs out with

Chinese people. His Chinese are amazing.

Like I was I would say on some some ways

better than my Chinese which is so

impressive. Yeah. And and very

embarrassing for me at all. [laughter]

>> That's wild. I I think though the hard

part, at least for me, would be becoming

fully fluent in the written language

because like for me it's really hard to

memorize the characters and stuff like

that. I just I completely amazed by

people who could come here in a year and

suddenly learn how to read.

>> Yeah, I can't do that as well as to

this. I'm struggling a lot with this. So

So texting,

>> you're going to have to wear your AI

smart goggles where

>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I need that.

Luckily, there's AI now. So I just click

a button and say everything.

>> All right, we're almost out of time. In

fact, we only booked this room until 3.

So we're going to have to get out here.

But let me let me ask you two AI guys,

do you have any predictions that you

might think would be surprising to the

US listeners or the non-Chinese

listeners? Any any thing about like

robots, robots in the home, or who's

going to be leading the model race, LLM

model race a year from now? any anything

that you think is sort of a little bit

non-obvious for the listeners?

>> Maybe the most nonobvious one although

it's also the quite it might be the most

uncertain one um is probably the the

phase transitioning where they start

mass producing machines like that is a

very politically sensitive issue in

China as well. So you can almost get no

like high quality information about that

but but it seems like they're going to

start massproducing that soon. Okay, I

want to Okay, I want to drill down on

this because I I I'm intensely

interested in this question and I even

like

>> when I was in Shanghai actually right

after I taped with you, Hu last time I

went to Shanghai and I another Manifold

listener who's Taiwanese Chinese brought

me to dinner and I met the top

leadership of SMIC who were all

Taiwanese. It was wild. They and their

wives were like all Taiwanese people.

Even they like we wouldn't really talk

about EUV because it was so sensitive.

>> You are asserting that we might see

actual EU Chinesemade EUV machines in

production soon. Is that what you're

saying?

>> But this is based on information that

people can rumors that people other

people can also find on the internet. So

this is like this is like most funny

information. But there's no there's no

like actual chin wa rumors like oh my my

labmate went off to this huge facility

that Huawei runs in near Shanghai where

they're actually maybe he's working on

EUV like that. You're you're not hearing

rumors like that.

>> I can Okay, I may be able to ask around.

I I I do know many of the the physics

engineering students and many of them

>> they go to the the SN manufacturers like

CMXT YTMC side carrier Huawei as well.

>> When I met with uh Taylor Ogen this

hedge fund guy in Shenza

>> he has he was tracking this uh green

field the site that Huawei and he has a

lot of inside access to rivers and

stuff. So he claims there's this huge

site where they're developing EUV stuff.

Huawei is doing it. And so but the

question of like how far they are from

actually shipping a machine that's used

to make chips, I I have no idea. But

there is definitely intense effort.

>> Yeah.

>> And there must be people going to staff

that facility, right? So So in

particular, Huawei does have a campus of

like

>> like maybe one to two million R&D

people.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. somewhere in the outskirts of

Shanghai.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. But but but we wouldn't be able to

get any like real information on this

because there there there were like

research groups who tried to dig into it

and [music] they were raided by the

government.

>> Oh, I see. So the government's

specifically trying to keep a lid on.

>> Yeah. So any anyone who actually wants

to do like rigorous analysis and

research on this

>> Yeah.

>> they they don't want to do it. They want

to stay away from because it's a red

line.

>> Interesting.

>> Okay. Well, maybe now is a good time to

call it. Awesome. Thanks to you guys. I

hope for our listeners this has been

informative and now you know more about

what life is like at China's top [music]

technological university. Thanks for

listening. Bye.