Peter Landers

When I was in Beijing this summer, I had a chance to ride in a couple of Chinese robo taxis

And to your point, Ling Ling, even the Chinese robotaxi companies and experts in the field say that Google sister Waymo is probably ahead in the latest technology for autonomous driving.

The Chinese companies like WeRide, Pony AI, Apollo Go, they're definitely watching Google very closely.

And any paper that Google might publish about its algorithms for robotaxis, those are sure to be scrutinized carefully by the

the chinese robo taxi companies and so it's a race really to get global markets the us market is not really open to these chinese companies but other global markets are and it's a race who can get there first and spread their technology and i got the sense that china might ultimately win and set the global standard five to ten years from now just because their robo taxis are more affordable and i

Companies are more active even than Waymo in trying to set up demonstration projects and experimental projects in the Middle East, in European countries.

So I think it's a race in many areas, not just robo-taxis.

I offered that as one example.

And it's also in AI and things like LLMs.

So it's a race to set those global standards for AI and also be the most widely used

I think that's right.

And with robotaxis, of course, safety is the overriding determinant, I think.

If a Chinese robotaxi can get from point A to point B safely, then why not go for the cheaper Chinese model?

What you said is entirely right.

And so many fields that China is taking the world lead in.

I had the opportunity when I was in China to take the bullet train from Beijing South Station to Hangzhou.

It's four hours and 20 minutes, roughly.

As someone who lived in Japan for a long time, it took a lot of bullet trains that are very fast and efficient and clean and enjoyable.

I was just bowled over by how pleasant this train was as well.

Certainly when it comes, for example, to anybody around the world who wants to build a high-speed rail system, would probably want to consider relying on Chinese technology, Chinese trains, and the operations system.