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ES Eric Schmidt Biotech markets commentator and regular co-host on Biotech Hangout, the weekly podcast on biotech public markets, IPOs, reverse mergers, M&A and clinical data r...

“It's pretty clear to me that eventually the majority of the world is going to be using Chinese models. That has huge geopolitical implications. The average geopolitical person I talk to has not figured this out yet.”

Masters of Scale · Startups & Venture · October 2026

“It's pretty clear to me that eventually the majority of the world is going to be using Chinese models. That has huge geopolitical implications. The average geopolitical person I talk to has not figured this out yet.” — Eric Schmidt, Masters of Scale

Context

Scoring the US-China AI race category by category for host Bob Safian, Schmidt gave "global influence over ten years" to China. His reasoning: most countries can't afford expensive American models, and Chinese models are free or cheap and good enough.

Transcript

Masters of Scale Around 20:12 into the episode
Eric Schmidt

If you measure it in terms of impact over 10 years, it will be China.

Bob Safian

It'll be China.

Eric Schmidt

And the reason, I'm sorry to say, and here's why. What's the difference between a free product and an expensive product? More users for the free product, right? The vast majority of countries do not have the economics, they do not have the wealth to really support the kind of costs and token costs and other things that we impose, which I understand, I'm not arguing. It's pretty clear to me that eventually the majority of the world is going to be using Chinese models. That has huge geopolitical implications. The average geopolitical person I talk to has not figured this out yet. It's obvious if you think about it. Free, cheap, good enough, expensive, powerful, reserved for elites, people who are wealthy, important companies, great research institutions.

Bob Safian

So by our scorecard, at least in this rough way, there's... She

Eric Schmidt

awarded one of them to the U.S.

Bob Safian

Well, I just wanted to ask you: are we missing anything? Is there any scenario where the U.S. and China both win? Or is it a zero-sum game?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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