Did the U.S. Just Hand its AI Edge to China?

Ed Elson unpacks the news that the U. S. is allowing Nvidia’s advanced H200 chip sales to China with Chris McGuire, Senior Fellow for China and Emerging Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Then, Alex Heath, author of the Sources newsletter and co-host of the Access podcast, joins to explore Google’s new smart glasses and their implications for the wearables market. Finally, Ed breaks down what a new report on OnlyFans reveals about the loneliness problem in America. Subscribe to the Access podcast on YouTube Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Follow Scott on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:59Ed Elson?

  Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is December 10th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals.

• 2:07Ed Elson?

  The major indices were muted ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision due today. Notably, the Russell 2000 hit an all time high. Meanwhile, the yield on 10 year Treasuries was stable. So was the dollar. Bitcoin rose. And finally, news broke in after hours trading that SpaceX is pursuing an IPO in 2026. According to reports, the company is seeking to raise more than $30 billion. That would make it the biggest listing ever.

• 2:36Ed Elson?

  Okay, what else is happening? In a sharp turn for US AI policy, the US is green lighting advanced chip sales to China. President Trump has announced that Nvidia can sell its H200 chips to China in exchange for a 25% cut for the US government. He claims that President Xi Jinping, quote, "responded positively" to the proposal. Nvidia stock climbed around 2% in response. However, after that announcement, The Financial Times reported that Beijing is already moving to limit access to those chips. By Tuesday morning, Nvidia gave back those gains and closed in the red. Okay, here to discuss what is going on here with

• 3:16Ed Elson?

  these H200s and our AI chip policy, we are speaking with Chris McGuire, Senior Fellow for China and Emerging Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Chris, thank you for joining us on Prof you Markets.

• 3:28Speaker 09

  Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.

• 3:30Ed Elson?

  So we've gotten this announcement from the president, Nvidia can now sell H200 chips to China. But this is the next development in a story that seems to keep on going in multiple different directions. First, it was that we can't sell the chips. Now we can, then we can't. Now we can. What is the timeline here? What has actually happened? And how has this news changed our policy on whether the US can or cannot?

• 4:02Ed Elson?

  Send chips to China.

• 4:03Speaker 09

  Yeah, that's a good question. I'll just walk through quickly the the history here. So it was starting in in October 2022. The United States first implemented policies to say the most advanced AI chips that were actually drawn in line to A100s level below this one, the previous generation. Anything more advanced than that cannot be advanced to China, cannot be sold to China. The policy at the time was to maintain as large of a lead as possible over China. And there are basically two prongs to that. One was maximally slowing China down in AI, and the other one was maximally investing at home. So that has been the policy. There's been various kind of ways to tighten it and close loopholes over the years. But the the other prominent one is at the beginning, the Trump administration.

• 4:48Speaker 09

  Nvidia consistently kind of made chips that just worked around. And the Trump administration, in April of this year, kind of closed all loopholes, said, Nvidia can't be in the China market. And but then quickly reversed that policy and allowed the H20, which was a much less advanced chip, to be sold to China. Now they are taking a much more significant step to say that the H200 can be sold to China, which is the first chip that is that is over all of the original thresholds. This is the first time that we're really exporting AI chips that are that are far greater than the intent of of the controls. And that really would provide a pretty substantial plus up in China's compute capability.

• 5:29Speaker 09

  It's it's six times better than the H20. It's nine times over the export control limits. So even though it's the previous generation chip, it's not the Blackwell chip that's the most advanced. It's still a very, very capable chip, and it's by far the most chip, most capable chip ever sent to China. So that's kind of a timeline here of how all this has played out. Obviously, big questions about what does this mean in the future? But also kind of, you know, what is it? Why does this matter? And what are the implications that we can talk through?

• 5:58Ed Elson?

  Yeah, I appreciate that timeline. Sounds like under Biden, we had restrictions, but looser restrictions. Then we tightened a lot, then we slightly loosened. Now we're slightly loosening again. I guess my question is. Why? Why are we now loosening a little bit more? What was the impetus for this?

• 6:18Speaker 09

  Yeah, I think I think actually all the changes before now were more on the margins. The big changes, I think, were October 2022, when the United States first implemented these controls and first said AI chips to China are going to be banned. And then the action yesterday where we said, actually, we are willing to export advanced AI chips to China. So those are like the real bookends. Everything else in the middle, I think, is more the kind of details of the story. The rationale of the control was because large numbers of advanced chips are necessary to make advanced AI models, and China cannot make advanced chips themselves. This is a significant advantage the United States has over China in AI.

• 7:00Speaker 09

  It's probably the only significant advantage the United States has over China in AI. I think on talent, algorithms, data, electricity generation, applications, it's either a wash or China's ahead, but hardware is the area where we are very ahead. There actually has been pretty significant bipartisan support for this policy historically. But but Jensen Huang has argued very vehemently, particularly over both administrations, but particularly effectively in this administration, to lessen those policies. Valid question as to why. I think the from Nvidia's perspective, they definitely want to have a more diverse customer base. They have three, I think, three companies probably make, I think, make up 50% of their revenue.

• 7:43Speaker 09

  That poses an understandable strategic issue for anyone who leads a business. So they want to be able to sell to more providers, but that probably necessitates them selling to China. Up until now, the US government has said that's not in the US national interest. That might be in Nvidia's interest, but we think that's going to materially advance China's AI capabilities, which poses national security threats, and therefore, we're not going to let it happen. I think the President Trump has deciding this has upended that and is basically saying whatever is good for Nvidia is good for America. Personally, I think I think Nvidia is a fantastic company that produces amazing products and is doing great things, but I think that probably wouldn't make us blanket a statement personally.

• 8:23Ed Elson?

  Yeah, I guess that's the part that is interesting is that it seemed that this was all about national security. We can't do it. We can't give sell our chips to China. It's too important. It's too dangerous. And now we're deciding. Yes, we can do it. And I guess the thing that is confusing as a viewer, as an observer from the administration is why? Why now? Is it that Jensen is now buddies with the administration? That's certainly what it begins to look like when we see all these dinners and maybe we're being, I don't know, too blunt there, but that's certainly what it appears. I mean, what is it, do we think? Why is the administration deciding that this national security concern, which seemed like such a big deal, is no longer as big of a deal?

• 9:07Speaker 09

  I think it's a very good question. And I do think the answer to why this happened is like it came down to personal relationships. And I think, you know, Jensen Huang has convinced the president that this is a good thing. I think there are many people in DC, on Capitol Hill, in the administration, who are very skeptical of this, who do not believe that we should be sending China our most advanced technologies and have concerns about how China can use AI in the military and defense and espionage realms to undermine US national security. It has active plans to do so. So I think, look, there are other arguments that people make for exporting the chips. They'll tell you, well, if we don't export them, Huawei will fill the vacuum.

• 9:49Ed Elson?

  Right.

• 9:50Speaker 09

  I think that one I disagree with because actually if you look at the US Nvidia and Huawei's AI chip roadmaps, Nvidia's chips are getting substantially better. They're already five times better and in two years, they're going to get to about 20 times better. China's chip making capability is very constrained. It is the one thing that they can't make really well, sophisticated AI chips. They're the most complicated thing to make in the world. So I don't think they'll fill the gap. The idea that we could get, you know, countries, China addicted to US chips, I also just don't think there's been any technology where China has ever accepted being reliant on a foreign power, particularly, you know, they have been adamant not to be reliant on the United States, in particular on semiconductors. So

• 10:34Speaker 09

  I don't think there's any putting the toothpaste back in the tube on this.

• 10:37Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 10:38Speaker 09

  So, look, there are arguments, but I personally don't think they carry as much water or word out by the history of the data. I think the reason is because... Personal relationships have pushed big policy decisions across the line.

• 10:50Ed Elson?

  Yeah, it is very interesting just from a national security, what is best for America perspective, where on the one hand, it's, well, we don't want to be giving China chips to advance their AI efforts. And then on the other hand, well, do we like that we have this leverage? Do we like the fact that they are so dependent on us? And I think what is very interesting is this more recent report that we heard from the Financial Times, which is that Beijing, Xi Jinping, China is actually actively limiting how many of these H200 chips their own companies can buy. So in other words, they're saying, we actually don't want to buy them. We're going to try to restrict ourselves. We're going

• 11:34Ed Elson?

  to cut ourselves off from this. What do you make of that report?

• 11:37Speaker 09

  Yeah, that is very interesting. And we've seen this play out multiple times over the last few months. I mean, when the United States initially allowed the H20, so the kind of less good AI chip to go to China, China has blocked that. And I think that was, in my opinion, very likely a negotiating ploy. I think they were trying to push for the more advanced chip and that ploy worked. I do think there is an element here where China is trying to make sure that they protect their own market, right? They are trying to make AI chips. Huawei is making AI chips. They're not nearly as good. They're not making nearly as many, but they are trying to do it. And China will make sure those chips get sold. They're not going to let those chips get unsold and just stuck in warehouses.

• 12:19Speaker 09

  So they will manipulate their domestic market to say, hey, these are the things that we need to use domestic chips for and make sure that the Huawei chips, you know, can continue to all get sold and be used. And that will be the case, no matter how many chips they make. But yeah, the question of like, whether or not they actually, I'm sure they do have concerns about like backdoors and security, but whether or not they would actually be willing to forego the very substantial plus ups in compute capability that sending H200s would represent. I'm a little more skeptical, but you know, countries make silly decisions all the time. So I don't know.

• 13:02Ed Elson?

  Chris McGuire, Senior Fellow for China and Emerging Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Chris, this fascinating stuff. Thank you for joining us.

• 13:09Speaker 09

  Thanks very much, Adam.

• 13:11Ed Elson?

  After the break, Google's next product, smart glasses.

• 13:16Ed Elson?

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• 14:58Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. Google is taking another swing at smart glasses, and this time it is betting that AI will make the difference. More than a decade after the Google Glass, the company has announced plans to launch AI-powered glasses in 2026. It is creating an audio-only model that lets users speak directly with Gemini. It's also working on a version with an in-lens display capable of showing navigation prompts and real-time translation. The hardware will be developed through partnerships with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker. So. Here to help us unpack what this announcement means for Google and smart glasses and wearables

• 15:39Ed Elson?

  at large. We are speaking with Alex Heath, author of the Sources Newsletter and co-host of the Access Podcast. Alex, good to see you.

• 15:47Alex Heath?

  Good to see you, man.

• 15:48Ed Elson?

  So these smart glasses, I think the first question is, Google already did it. We had the Google Glass. It was the first example of smart glasses. Then they stopped doing it because it was a dramatic failure. Now they're doing it again. What's changed here?

• 16:06Alex Heath?

  I think the short answer is AI. I think they see a huge opportunity, and I've talked to their leadership there about this, to build Google for your face, which honestly is a pretty compelling idea. A lot of them inside Google are also obsessed with this idea of super memory, of having all your googly contacts, which is for a lot of people, it's their work, it's their documents, it's their emails, their calendar, it's maps, it's all these touchpoints. Google has like over a dozen products with over 2 billion users, I think. So all these touchpoints with Gemini as like the orchestrator in a heads-up kind of on-your-face, seeing the world and understanding it, you know, product is a

• 16:51Alex Heath?

  super compelling idea. And that just didn't exist when Glass came out. I mean, AI was but a twinkle in everyone's eye. And society has also gotten to a point where people see the Meta Glasses out and about, there's all these AI wearables, Sam and Johnny are doing their thing. And there's just this growing, I think, social acceptance of wearables and AI. And I think the timing for them feels good. And it doesn't hurt that, you know, Meta is seeing early sales traction with the Ray-Ban partnership, starting to actually sell, you know, millions of units a year. Those kind of numbers will get anyone who is a potential competitor interested in the space.

• 17:32Ed Elson?

  Do we know anything about what they will look like or how they will work? Do we have any specs out?

• 17:39Alex Heath?

  Yeah, so they're adopting the Meta approach, and it's actually the Android approach. I do think they kind of, you could map this to how they've approached Android, where they work with a ton of OEMs. And in this case, the initial products are going to be in partnership with Warby Parker. Gentle Monster, which is a huge eyewear brand in Asia, some others. And then I do think we will see, I don't know if they're going to call it glass per se. That would be pretty, uh, pretty ballsy. I think they should. I've told them that. But, um, we will see a first party Google, you know, experience too. In the same way that Google has Pixel, but then Android is everywhere and Samsung sells the most Androids.

• 18:19Alex Heath?

  They really want this platform, this Gemini AR software platform to be the bat and to be everywhere, which is a real assault on Meta's strategy. Luckily Meta has the Elson Luxottica partnership, but Google is going for all the others. And then that just leaves Apple with a fully, you know, classic Apple vertically integrated approach. And I expect to see, you know, the Apple glasses in a couple of years.

• 18:44Ed Elson?

  It's so interesting to see how this market has evolved over time in Silicon Valley. Because, you know, we had one era where everyone thought glasses were the next thing. And we saw the Google Glass, we saw, uh, the Snap spectacles. We've even seen, you know, the Vision Pro, we've seen what's happened with the headsets and all of that. Then it seems to get put to bed and people seem to say, okay, this isn't going to happen. Now it's back and I wonder why it's back. Is it, I mean, you mentioned AI is playing a piece of this. Is it that Meta also proved that it can work?

• 19:20Alex Heath?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Ed Elson?

  If, I guess they look good?

• 19:22Alex Heath?

  Yeah, if they look good, I think, you know, people in tech don't understand this basic concept of like, people don't want to wear ugly things. And, uh, I think for a long time it was really hard to get through everyone's head that like, the bar to putting something on you with technology is just super, super high. It's not like a phone. It's not like trying a foldable or something. And Meta finally cracked that with, with Ray-Ban and Elson Luxottica. And a product that's not bad, you know, it's not, it's not amazing. The AI is not really what people use it for, but for taking photos, for listening to podcasts, all that stuff. It's a good product and it looks like glasses and you can't really tell the difference. And that, that is the bar. So showing that and then seeing the early sales.

• 20:04Alex Heath?

  Yes, I think that kind of quote unquote validates the space. I mean, man, I've been reporting on air glasses for like a decade and they were kind of the original AI in sense of like all these founders all the way up from like Zuck down to Evan Spiegel would talk about this thing as the next the next major platform that's going to change everything and rearchitect how we use technology and AI ended up kind of being that thing, right? In the last few years. And now I think everyone who's been, you know, the builders in Silicon Valley have been obsessed with air glasses as a replacement for the phone are finally going like, oh, AI now supercharges this and we have a path to making this socially acceptable.

• 20:44Ed Elson?

  Just looking at Wall Street's reaction, we didn't really see any any reaction in the stock.

• 20:50Ed Elson?

  We did see a huge reaction in Warby Parker's stock up 24%. I mean, you know, this is a far smaller company. So that's why we're seeing that. But

• 20:59Alex Heath?

  That's crazy to me because this Warby Parker thing was this is over a year old. Like they announced they were doing something with Warby Parker, I think in the spring.

• 21:06Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 21:06Alex Heath?

  I just, it seems a little twitchy to me.

• 21:08Ed Elson?

  Yeah. What do you make of Wall Street's reaction overall? I mean, just on the Google side,

• 21:15Ed Elson?

  Wall Street doesn't seem to care that much about this. They're certainly not really pricing this in. If this is going to be the next frontier, the next platform, investors don't seem to believe it or take it seriously yet.

• 21:28Alex Heath?

  It's too uncertain. I mean, the timelines are uncertain. Everyone would tell you, they'd tell me in interviews that air glasses are right around the corner. They're just going to be in three years and they've been saying that for the last 10 years. So it's just a platform that has constantly been delayed. So I'm not surprised by the reaction or lack of with Google, but it's an AI story, right? There's Gemini involved. So if any Gemini is going to touch your stock as a smaller company, you're going to get that bubble pop that you talk about so much on this show. Those kind of stock reactions are the bubble add. I mean, let's be honest, like that that this announcement does not warrant a 24% jump in Warby Parker's stock. I am not a stock analyst,

• 22:08Alex Heath?

  but I just know the I know I know facts and I know just like reality and it's ridiculous. It's because and so I think just everyone is so twitchy about AI. And if you're can say you're aligning with who is seen right now is kind of objectively the category leader in AI, Google, of course, you're going to get that pop. It doesn't mean it's here to stay, but you'll get it.

• 22:29Ed Elson?

  Just as someone who's Covered this stuff and studied these technologies for a long time. What do you think of AI glasses and smart glasses? Do you think that they are the future? Will we be walking around, interacting with screens in front of our eyes?

• 22:49Alex Heath?

  I always have. I've loved the idea of it, the sci fi idea of it. And I've used so many prototypes over the years. Some are good, some are bad. Did you get to use the meta displays that they just teased or I guess released a few months?

• 23:02Ed Elson?

  No, no, I've tried on, I've tried on the ray bands and taken some photos and

• 23:08Alex Heath?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Ed Elson?

  Played music.

• 23:09Alex Heath?

  I've got those. Those are a genuinely wow moment when you do the demo. They're not like a product in a sense that they're ready to be like worn all day and used all day. And the AI is not quite there. But when you see the interaction modality, the way it like feels, the like kind of aha of like, oh, getting this context in my vision. It's just like obvious, it's just obvious, man, that this is where it's going. Cause it's just so much more natural. It's just a natural way to use technology. Again, it doesn't look natural right now and it's clunky and like they've got to iron the bugs out. And there's a lot of those. I'm not actually of the opinion that a lot of other, I would say like armchair experts are that like, there's all these fundamental breakthroughs that need to happen for AR glasses to be mainstream.

• 23:54Alex Heath?

  I actually do think it's kind of inevitable at this point when you use the meta displays. It's like, wow, they've, they've got a couple of years of iterating on this. And this is a pretty compelling product. Whereas before it was like, they keep saying it's a couple of years out, but who knows? I don't, I haven't been able to take anything home. And so that was a big moment. And I think we'll have a couple of those in the next couple of years with Google and Apple. But again, I don't, the phone is safe, you know, it's never going to go away. And I don't even know if it's going to be meaningfully disrupted within five years. You know, if you're trying to like short Apple over this, I wouldn't. But I do think it's inevitable just because of the natural use of it.

• 24:32Ed Elson?

  Just on Apple, I mean, the implications here is that this will ultimately disrupt the phone in some way. Maybe it won't replace it, but it will certainly change the way we interact with technology.

• 24:43Alex Heath?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Ed Elson?

  Apple's got the headset. They've got the Vision Pro. They're now scaling that back because it's been kind of a flop. Are they working on glasses? Do we know if they are going to do glasses?

• 24:56Alex Heath?

  Yes, they are. I and others are hearing 2027-ish, maybe 28 for V1. Notably, Meta just hired Alan Dai, Apple's head of design, who oversaw Vision OS and obviously was intimately familiar with the glasses roadmap and decided to leave Apple before that roadmap was shipped. So that, I think, says something, doesn't it?

• 25:24Ed Elson?

  Yeah. Well, this glasses race is something we will continue to cover. Alex Heath, author of the Sources newsletter and co-host of the Access Podcast. Always good to see you. Thanks, Alex.

• 25:36Alex Heath?

  Always good. Thanks, Ed.

• 25:41Ed Elson?

  A new report on OnlyFans just came out, and it takes a look at how much people actually spent on the platform in 2025. It also breaks down these numbers by region. So we got a picture of not only how addicted the world is to OnlyFans, but also which countries are most addicted to OnlyFans. As a reminder, for those who don't know, OnlyFans is a creator platform, but it might as well be called a porn platform. The way it works is people, primarily young women, post-sexual and illicit content in exchange for money. And unlike regular porn sites, which are primarily driven by ads, this is a subscription-driven business. So primarily young men will pay a monthly subscription

• 26:26Ed Elson?

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• 27:10Ed Elson?

  the United States, which spent on OnlyFans again in 2025, $2.6 billion.

• 27:20Ed Elson?

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• 28:02Ed Elson?

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• 29:29Ed Elson?

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• 30:42Ed Elson?

  and what is wrong with young men in particular than OnlyFans.

• 30:50Ed Elson?

  Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Jill Pathson and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our research team is Dan Chalon, Isabella Kinsel, Chris Nudonahue and Mia Silverio. And our technical director is Drew Burrows. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from Prof G Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I'll see you tomorrow.