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Eric Schmidt says China is now just 6 months behind the U.S. in AI

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Eric Schmidt says China is now just 6 months behind the U.S. in AI

The AI race between the U.S. and China is the defining competition of our age. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, adviser to the Pentagon, and current CEO of Relativity Space, gives his most unvarnished assessment yet. He reveals that the gap he once estimated at two years has narrowed to six months, and takes on the open-source question that’s keeping Silicon Valley up at night. He also shares the one thing he believes could keep this from becoming a zero-sum game—even if the current political environment makes it nearly impossible.

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian and recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit 2026. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

I get whipsawed sometimes by the saber-rattling and jingoism that may be happening around China’s advancement in AI, and I’m glad you can help demystify this for us. The U.S. had a clear first-mover advantage in AI. There are questions about whether that’s going to persist or not. You’ve said the AI gap between the U.S. and China has narrowed to roughly six months. What’s changed most recently?

The biggest change in the last year that’s notable for everyone here is that the cost of software has gone from very expensive to almost nothing.


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