China Decode: Why China’s Baby Bust Meets a Condom Tax
In this episode of China Decode, Alice Han and James Kynge break down a quieter but consequential shift in Washington’s China strategy. They unpack Trump’s new national security playbook, why Beijing is suddenly sounding upbeat, and whether this signals a real reset or just a tactical pause in U.S.-China tensions. They also dig into China’s baby bust — and the backlash to a new tax on condoms — as policymakers search for answers to falling birth rates. Plus, Alice sits down with Chip War author Chris Miller to discuss Trump’s surprise reversal on AI chip exports to China, what it means for NVIDIA, and why semiconductors are now at the center of global power politics.
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H20s to China + 15% with Chris Miller and Lennart Heim
We’re sharing an episode from ChinaTalk that dives into one of the biggest recent reversals in U.S. tech policy.
The U.S. banned Nvidia’s H20 AI chips to China in April. Now, just months later, they’re being sold—with a 15% export fee. What happened? Why the reversal? And what does it mean for the future of AI competition between the U.S. and China?
Chris Miller—author of Chip War—and Lennart Heim from RAND join ChinaTalk host Jordan Schneider to unpack the policy flip-flop, why China is publicly downplaying interest in the H20, and why high-bandwidth memory and semiconductor manufacturing tools may be even more important than the Nvidia chips themselves.
Resources:
Listen to more from ChinaTalk: https://link.chtbl.com/chinatalk
Check out the Horizon Fellowship to work in DC on emerging tech policy issues like AI chip export controls: https://horizonpublicservice.org/applications-open-for-2026-horizon-fellowship-cohort/
Outro Music: It's a Shame, The Spinners, 1970
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Feed Drop: MIT CSAIL Alliances Podcast
Today’s episode is a bonus drop from our friends over at the MIT CSAIL Alliances podcast. We'll be back on September 16 with new episodes of Me, Myself, and AI.
Chris Miller is professor of international history at Tufts University. He joins the MIT CSAIL Alliances podcast to share insights from his recent book, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.
Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the executive producer is Allison Ryder.
Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
Andrew Homan & Chris Miller - Redefining Semiconductor Progress - [Invest Like the Best, EP.396]
My guests today are Andrew Homan and Chris Miller. Andrew has spent two decades at Maverick Capital and is a managing partner at Maverick Silicon, where he leads the firm’s technology investments. Chris is a professor at Tufts and the author of the New York Times best-selling book “Chip War,” which details the geopolitical battle to control the semiconductor industry. Together we get into a comprehensive discussion on the semiconductor ecosystem and the silicon backbone of our digital age. Andrew and Chris share insights on how venture capital is navigating this complex industry and what it means for the future of computing. We discuss the AI-driven revolution in chip demand, the geopolitics of semi-manufacturing, and the next wave of innovation beyond NVIDIA. Please enjoy my conversation with Andrew Homan and Chris Miller.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest growing FinTech company in history and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. It’s also notable that many best-in-class businesses use Ramp—companies like Airbnb, Anduril, and Shopify, as well as investors like Sequoia Capital and Vista Equity. They use Ramp to manage their spending, automate tedious financial processes, and reinvest saved dollars and hours into growth. At Colossus and Positive Sum, we use Ramp for exactly the same reason. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
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Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:06:28) Intel's Historical Success and Current Challenges
(00:08:22) The Paradigm Shift in Technology
(00:11:44) AI and the Future of Semiconductors
(00:19:02) Political and Economic Considerations in Chip Manufacturing
(00:29:28) Investment Perspectives and Market Dynamics
(00:45:46) The Mobile Paradigm Shift: Apple vs. AT&T
(00:46:49) Corporate Strategies in the AI Transition
(00:48:02) NVIDIA's Dominance and Potential Vulnerabilities
(00:51:27) The Future of Edge AI
(00:57:02) Powering the Data Centers of Tomorrow
(00:59:42) The Semiconductor Startup Ecosystem
(01:05:08) The Role of Government and Global Dynamics
(01:07:28) Investment Strategies and Market Dynamics
(01:10:57) The Future of the Semiconductor Industry
(01:25:52) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done For Chris And Andrew
Hard Fork Presents: The Most Amazing – And Dangerous – Technology In the World
Today we’re bringing you an episode on chips. No, not potato chips. Kevin has been pitching an episode on the truly fascinating world of chips and semiconductors for quite a while, but our friends at the The Ezra Klein Show got to it first. This week on Hard Fork: Ezra Klein’s engrossing conversation with historian Chris Miller. It’s a must listen. Thank you to Ezra for beating us in our quest for a great chips episode.
We'll be back with our regularly scheduled tech coverage, with Kevin and Casey next week.
Additional reading:
“The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism” by Ezra Klein
Book Recommendations:The World For Sale by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy; Nexus by Jonathan Reed Winkler; Prestige, Manipulation and Coercion by Joseph Torigian
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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How Chips Rule the Modern World — with Chris Miller
Chris Miller, an Associate Professor of International History at Tufts University, and the author of “Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology,” joins Scott to discuss how chips became the new oil, who the major players are, and how these tiny materials created the modern world. Plus, we learn more about China and Russia’s unique relationship.
Scott opens by discussing Twitter, Q1 2023 results, and why he does not think we should pause AI developments.
Algebra of Happiness: just book it.
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Inside the global battle over chip manufacturing
A few weeks ago, President Biden was in the Netherlands, where he asked the Dutch government to restrict export from a company called ASML to China. ASML is the only company in the world that makes a specific machine needed to make the most advanced chips. Apple couldn’t make iPhone chips without this one machine from the Netherlands’ biggest company. ASML doesn’t just shape the Dutch economy—it shapes the entire world economy. How did that happen?
Chris Miller, Tufts professor and author of Chip War: The Fight For The World’s Most Critical Technology walked me through a lot of this, along with some deep dives into geopolitics and the absolutely fascinating chip manufacturing process. This one has everything: foreign policy, high powered lasers, hotshot executives, monopolies, the fundamental limits of physics, and, of course, Texas. Here we go.
Links:
US issues sweeping restrictions on chip sales to China
Japan and the Netherlands join US with tough chip controls on China
Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around — here’s how it’s going
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23342471
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan.
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This Is What the US Just Did to China on Semiconductors
Earlier this month, the Biden administration unveiled a new set of restrictions on exporting semiconductors and related technology to China. The actions are seen as a significant escalation of an ongoing effort to constrain China's domestic chip ambitions. But semiconductor diplomacy and limitations on their export have existed almost since the industry was born. So what are the effects of these new actions? How severe are they? And to what degree do they actually set back China's efforts to develop its own technology? On this episode, we speak to Chris Miller, a professor at the Fletcher School and the author of the new book Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology. He explains the significance of the move and puts it into historical context.
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ASML, the Obscure Powerhouse at the Cutting Edge of Chip Technology
This year has brought fresh awareness to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain. Taiwan Semiconductor, the big manufacturer, has become a household name. But there's another giant that hardly anyone outside of the chip industry has heard of. ASML is a Dutch company that's at the cutting edge of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography — the most advanced technology for reliably printing transistors onto a chip. If you want to produce the most advanced chips, you must buy equipment from ASML. But what do they do and how did they come to occupy this position? On this episode we speak with Chris Miller, an Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the author of a forthcoming book about the semiconductor industry, about the company, where it came from, and the unique spot it occupies on the world stage.
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