Will China or the US lead the way in the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

To answer this question, leading thinkers and policymakers in both countries draw lessons from past technology-driven power transitions that center the moment of innovation – the eureka moment that sparks astonishing technological feats.

In this talk, focused on his new book, Technology and the Rise of the Great Powers, Jeffrey Ding offers a different explanation of how technological revolutions affect competition among great powers. Rather than focusing on which state was the first to introduce major innovations, he investigates why some states were more successful than others at adapting and embracing general-purpose technologies at scale.

Drawing on historical case studies of past industrial revolutions and statistical analysis, Ding develops a theory that emphasizes institutional adaptations oriented around diffusing technological advances throughout the economy. Applying GPT diffusion theory to analyze US-China competition in AI, Ding’s book derives novel insights into how today’s technological breakthroughs will affect the US-China power balance and the optimal strategies for the US and China to pursue.