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

by Kai-Fu Lee

After European clocks won the favor of the Chinese emperor, local workshops sprang up all over China to study and recreate the Western imports. In the southern port cities where Westerners came to trade, China’s best craftspeople took apart the ingenious European devices, examining each interlocking piece and design flourish. They mastered the basics and began producing clocks that were near-exact replicas of the European models. From there, the artisans took the underlying principles of clock-building and began constructing timepieces that embodied Chinese designs and cultural traditions: animated Silk Road caravans, lifelike scenes from the streets of Beijing, and the quiet equanimity of Buddhist sutras.