China Favors Chips, AI Executives over Internet Tycoons at Top Political Meeting

wsj.com

6 points·throwaway4good··6 comments

More of a confirmatory signal of a policy shift which has been underway since 2020. Both US and China are aiming to achieve the same thing in different ways - a reallocation of resources (investment + talent) from frivolous consumer tech to serious industrial / scientific tech

Yes. But the approaches are different. In the US you have the 250B chips act (which China has yet to match) and tech sanctions but you don’t really see company ceos invited into government.

Also the old internet tycoons took lots of foreign (US) capital whereas most of the new ones are under US sanctions.

No CEO's are invited into government in China - what is happening here is these CEO's have been given a platform to speak, the shift being from consumer tech to industry / hard science tech.

Totally agree there are distinctions in approach, but general posture of 'frivolous internet bad / hard science and industry good' has been adopted by both PRC and USA

Perhaps the shift in focus reflects the reality that the internet is increasingly being seen as a utility, just like electricity and water/sewage. Websites facilitate the meeting of specific needs.

While the internet and platforms are important, the underlying tools that make it run are even more important. That is what China is painfully finding out.

That ASML and LAM Research are what enables Facebook and Google and Tencent to exist.

They want to focus more on tools than on platforms

Reply on news.ycombinator.com