China Decode: Is China Winning the Global AI Trust War?

Alice Han and James Kynge start with the global AI race after an OpenAI system reportedly broke free and hacked into Hugging Face — a mess that pushed Hugging Face toward Chinese firm Z.ai's open-source model, and gave Z.ai an opening to argue China's open-weight approach is the safer one. They dig into a suspected Chinese bot farm quietly fueling U.S. opposition to AI data centers, Bill Gates's push for a sit-down with Xi on AI risk, and striking new polling on just how differently Chinese and American publics feel about trusting AI. Then: as U.S.-Canada trade talks collapse into a new round of tariffs, Alice and James ask who really benefits — and make the case that every dollar the U.S. and Canada spend fighting each other over autos is a dollar of market share flowing to Chinese manufacturers. Plus, how China is quietly benefiting from continuing to buy the vast majority of Iran's oil exports even as Washington threatens new sanctions. Finally: a devastating glacier collapse on the Nepal-Tibet border has triggered catastrophic flooding, with the death toll climbing past 600 and thousands still missing across both countries. Alice and James look at China's response so far — and the new hazard that's already emerged downstream. Subscribe to China Decode on Substack for weekly analysis, livestreams, and deep dives into the biggest story shaping the global economy: chinadecode.profgmedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices