China's AI price war and Japanese who "don't know how to use it"

Hello from Yifan in California, your #techAsia host this week. I've just come back from the Independence Day holiday, which officially kicked off the summer season.

I attended several July 4th and summer parties in Silicon Valley over the past few weeks. While AI is still the hottest topic in town, the approaching U.S. presidential election has also come up at almost every conversation I had or overheard.

While California remains a deep blue state, Silicon Valley has split over Biden and Trump in the past few years, as some in the traditionally liberal tech industry started to lean right following the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice movements such as Black Lives Matters. The shift was led by tech billionaires including Elon Musk, who has spoken out against so-called woke culture.

But neither presidential candidate was particularly popular at the parties I attended, and one of the reasons is their lack of a plan to govern the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence. The tech industry never likes regulation, but as one founder of an AI startup said to me: "No industry can thrive without regulation in the long run. It's mayhem."

As AI becomes more prevalent and more powerful, the U.S. needs a concrete road map to govern the technology, something neither Trump nor Biden has offered.

After President Biden's less than stellar debate against former President Trump, calls for a new Democratic presidential candidate have been growing. Vice President Kamala Harris, who some see as the most likely replacement if Biden decides to pull out of the race, has been leading the administration's AI regulatory effort, including attending a global AI safety summit hosted by the U.K. last year. The U.S. might embark on a clearer