Aug 25, 2026

Dylan Patel – Two labs will soon control most of the world's workforce

A detailed discussion on the rapid centralization of AI compute power within frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, driven by their superior monetization of compute. The conversation explores the massive CapEx requirements for AI infrastructure, the potential for a sovereign debt crisis due to rising interest rates, and the impact of regulation on AI progress. It also delves into the strategic shift from inference to R&D within labs and the implications of exponential growth in

Aug 14, 2026

Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max: Open-Weight Model Surpasses Most American Frontier Labs (Ep. 1018)

Jon Krohn dissects Alibaba's Qwen 3.8 Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model positioned as the largest open-weight release in history if its promised weights ship. The discussion covers its multimodal capabilities, 1M token context window, and performance competitive with Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. Key highlights include its advanced multi-day agentic capabilities and aggressively low pricing ($2 in / $6 out per million tokens), intensifying the AI price war. Krohn also provides critical insights into the safety of using Chinese models, emphasizing data handling practices and the benefits/risks across different deployment scenarios.

Aug 13, 2026

Why Old GPUs Keep Gaining Value

Steve Hou, Head of Research at Silicon Data, unpacks the data behind the AI compute market, revealing persistent tightness in GPU rentals and rising residual values, despite talk of oversupply. He discusses the methodologies behind their GPU price indices and forward curves, the evolving hardware landscape beyond Nvidia (including AMD, Cerebras, and TPUs), and trends in LLM token economics. The conversation also delves into the complex financial aspects of AI data center buildouts, the rise of specialized models, China's emerging AI hardware ecosystem, and the growing importance of power constraints and distributed AI infrastructure.

Aug 08, 2026

CAN CHINA BEAT WAYMO?

This episode discusses three critical topics in AI: the true nature of recent AI agent "breakouts," arguing they highlight governance and security flaws rather than model danger; the role of AGI narratives in fueling the current AI investment bubble and questioning its sustainability; and China's aggressive strategy in the global robotaxi market, potentially outpacing Western counterparts like Waymo.