Eric Schmidt calls OpenAI and Anthropic modern colonial trading companies
The Decoder · rss · 2026-10-25
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, historian Niall Ferguson, and researcher Lisa Klaassen argue in Foreign Affairs that the US and China are becoming AI empires with every other country as a dependency, likening OpenAI and Anthropic to modern colonial trading companies.
- The AI race will be decided by financing, not breakthroughs: US corporations alone plan to spend over $600 billion in 2026.
- Both superpowers face headwinds: mounting debt, protests against data centers, and a potential chip crisis over Taiwan could stall progress.
A notable big-picture framing of AI geopolitics from a heavyweight voice.
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