Beijing 2019 Notes -- addendum

I just came across this beautiful video with 4k drone footage of Guangzhou, part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area in the Pearl River delta region.

In my earlier post on Beijing I emphasized the issue of scale in China -- massive scale that is evident in the video above.

I traveled in SE Asia before the 1997 currency / economic crisis. At that time there was plenty of evidence of a bubble in those countries -- unused infrastructure and real estate built on spec, few signs of real technological or productive capability, etc. China had aspects of that 10 years ago, but now it's apparent that earlier infrastructure investment is being put to good use.

As I walked around Beijing I strained to find things around me -- buildings, solar panels, batteries, cars, high speed trains, electronics, software infrastructure, even airplanes -- that couldn't be sourced in China. Other than a few specific tech stacks that will get serious attention in coming years (e.g., CPUs) I was not able to think of many areas in which China has not caught up technologically. See Can the US derail China 2025?

PS I'm back in the US now. Will be giving a talk today at IGI in Berkeley and at OpenAI on Thursday.