AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee

Perception AI–powered shopping trips like this will capture one of the fundamental contradictions of the AI age before us: it will feel both completely ordinary and totally revolutionary. Much of our daily activity will still follow our everyday established patterns, but the digitization of the world will eliminate common points of friction and tailor services to each individual. They will bring the convenience and abundance of the online world into our offline reality. Just as important, by understanding and predicting the habits of each shopper, these stores will make major improvements in their supply chains, reducing food waste and increasing profitability. And a supermarket like the one I’ve described isn’t far off. The core technologies already exist, and it’s largely a matter now of working out minor kinks in the software, integrating the back end of the supply chain, and building out the stores themselves.