Episode
#190 - Sam Lyman - China’s Secret War on American AI
- Podcast
- The Peter McCormack Show
- Published
- Jul 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3691
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://shows.acast.com/the-peter-mccormack-show/episodes/190-sam-lyman-chinas-secret-war-on-american-ai
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Summary
Sam Lyman joins me to discuss how China is allegedly targeting America’s AI buildout, the activist networks fighting data centres and why the race for AI infrastructure has become a national security battle. Sam explains how Chinese influence campaigns, open-source AI models, data centre protests and far-left activist groups may be working together to slow the United States down. We discuss Neville Roy Singham, Code Pink, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, foreign influence, anti-data centre campaigns, and how billions of dollars in AI infrastructure have reportedly been delayed or blocked. We also get into open-source AI, DeepSeek, US frontier models, Anthropic, AI export controls, whether AI doom narratives are being used to build regulatory moats, the risk of superintelligence, data centre moratoriums, socialism in America and why Sam believes the battle is now between Chinese AI and American AI. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - China’s AI War 00:00:47 - China Is Sabotaging US AI 00:01:02 - The Bot Campaign Against Data Centres 00:02:03 - Neville Roy Singham 00:03:14 - Why AI Is a Battle for Control 00:04:18 - China’s Open-Source AI Strategy 00:06:12 - What Americans Fear About AI 00:08:23 - Sam’s Background at Treasury and BPI 00:10:38 - Is Data Centre Opposition Organic? 00:12:32 - The China Influence Network 00:13:37 - What Is Code Pink? 00:16:10 - The Party for Socialism and Liberation 00:18:52 - How Data Centre Protests Slow AI 00:23:37 - $24 Billion in AI Buildout Stalled 00:27:55 - Why China Wants to Slow US AI 00:29:12 - Chinese AI or American AI 00:32:03 - Is Chinese AI Harvesting Data? 00:36:37 - The US Enters the Open-Source Race 00:42:52 - The AI Doomer Debate…