It used to be major projects like this were US based. If the cost here is right, this epic bridge was built for less than SF played to put nets on the golden gate. As @elonmusk said, “they must be some nice nets”.
China's Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge is set to open this year, becoming the world's tallest bridge at 2050 feet high.
Recent footage of the bridge has been released, showing crews putting on the finishing touches.
One of the most insane facts about the bridge is that construction began in 2022, meaning it took just three years for it to be built.
The bridge is nearly a mile long and stands nine times higher than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The bridge will cut travel time for drivers from an hour to a minute.
It reportedly cost about $280 million.
Greg Mark retweeted
AI OVERPRODUCTION
China seeks to commoditize their complements. So, over the following months, I expect a complete blitz of Chinese open-source AI models for everything from computer vision to robotics to image generation.
Why? I’m just inferring this from public statements, but their apparent goal is to take the profit out of AI software since they make money on AI-enabled hardware. Basically, they want to do to US tech (the last stronghold) what they already did to US manufacturing. Namely: copy it, optimize it, scale it, then wreck the Western original with low prices.
I don’t know if they’ll succeed.
But here’s the logic:
(1) First, China noticed that DeepSeek’s release temporarily knocked ~$1T off US tech market caps.
(2) Second, China’s core competency is exporting physical widgets, more than it is software.
(3) Third, China’s other core competency is exporting things at such massive scale that all foreign producers are bankrupted and they win the market. See what they’re doing to German and Japanese cars, for example.
(4) Fourth, China is well aware that it lacks global prestige as it’s historically been a copycat. With DeepSeek, becoming #1 in AI is now something they actually consider possibly achievable, and a matter of national pride.
(5) Fifth, DeepSeek has gone viral in China and its open source nature means that everyone can rapidly integrate it, down to the level of local officials and obscure companies. And they are doing so, and posting the results for praise on WeChat.
(6) Finally, while DeepSeek was obscure before recent events, it’s now a household name, and the founder (Liang Wengfeng) has met both with Xi but also the #2 in China, Li Qiang. They likely have unlimited resources now.
So, if you put all that together, China thinks it has an opportunity to hit US tech companies, boost its prestige, help its internal economy, and take the margins out of AI software globally (at least at the model level).
They will instead make their money by selling inexpensive AI-enabled hardware of increasing quality, from smart homes and self-driving cars to consumer drones and robot dogs.
Basically, China is trying to do to AI what they always do: study, copy, optimize, and then bankrupt everyone with low prices and enormous scale.
I don’t know if they’ll succeed at the app layer. But it could be hard for closed-source AI model developers to recoup the high fixed costs associated with training state-of-the-art models when great open source models are available.
Last, I agree it’s surprising that the country of the Great Firewall is suddenly the country of open source AI. But it is consistent in a different way, which is that China is just focused on doing whatever it takes to win — even to the point of copying partially-abandoned Western values like open source, which seemed like the hardest thing to adopt.
On that point: they did build censorship into the released DeepSeek AI models, but in a manner that’s easily circumvented outside China. So, you might conclude they don’t really care what non-Chinese people are saying outside China in other languages, so long as this doesn’t “interfere with China’s internal affairs.”
Anyway —this is an area I’ve been watching, and my reluctant conclusion is that China is getting better at software faster than the West is getting better at hardware.
Greg Mark retweeted
Just applying the same standards to public vs private workforce. Fair rules for all.
🇺🇸 SPEAKER JOHNSON: ASKING PUBLIC SERVANTS TO JUSTIFY THEIR WORK ISN'T UNREASONABLE
"The public work force needs to be treated with dignity and respect, and so do the American taxpayers.
In the private sector where most of us come from, it is not unusual for you to have to fill out weekly reports on what you're doing.
I don't think it's a crazy concept."
Source: Forbes
🎯
in my testing, deepseek crushes western models on ancient chinese philosophy and literature, while also having a much stronger command of english than my first-hand chinese sources. it feels like communing with literary/historical/philosophical knowledge across generations that i never had access to before. it's quite emotionally moving. it makes sense too, western labs dont care about training on chinese data (but chinese labs train on both). remember that china has several thousand years more of literary history than the west does (because we lost the majority of our roman/greek/egyptian literature and china preserved theirs). basically; our AI models are missing the literary foundations of western thought, but the chinese models have theirs intact. this could be both a classical "data advantage" and a less-obvious advantage for spiritual and philosophical self-actualization.
Greg Mark retweeted
Critical article to read wrt both US energy independence and reducing carbon footprint. The current version of the NRC isn’t working. The US has fallen dramatically behind Korea & China; we produce new nuclear at 4x the cost. We should reimagine NRC from blank sheet of paper.
Excellent piece on the crushing overregulation of nuclear innovation by the NRC—by appointees of both left and right. @elidourado wsj.com/opinion/let-states-r…
The world's first AI generated copper mug. This isn't a render. It's a real cup you can drink from.
Start Creating: app.backflip.ai/
Excited to have @NEA join @BackflipAI as we give everyone the power to go from ideas to reality.
NEA has a long history of backing deep tech companies, from hardware to CAD, and all things between. Welcome @lilatretikov @gregmatter @maddiehfaulkner @jamesekaplan
🚀 Congratulations, @BackflipAI--$30M raised for foundational 3D AI model that gives everyone the power to go from ideas to reality.
NEA's @lilatretikov, @gregmatter, @maddiehfaulkner, & @jamesekaplan detail our excitement around working with @Greg_Forged, @dbenny12 & the Backflip team to transform 3D design capabilities: nea.com/blog/neas-investment…
We’re excited to announce the Launch of @BackflipAI. Our mission is to dramatically accelerate the pace of hardware innovation and development, for one reason — we want to live in the future.
