Regulation - Interconnected

🤷Does China Want Generative AI?

My first post of 2024 tries to answer a question I’ve been wrestling with throughout 2023. Does China want generative AI? Increasingly, I think the answer is: not really. On balance, China as a whole (minus the small, elite circle of tech entrepreneurs,

Topics: AI• Open Source• Regulation•

($) AI Executive Order: Likes and Dislikes

Topics: Open Source• Regulation• AI•

🏛️Washington is Using China to Destroy Open Source

The word “China” has been used as the boogeyman for a lot of tech policy initiatives in Washington DC – some smart, some dumb. The dumbest one yet is the latest push to restrict and regulate open source – the one remaining norm of openness, transparency,

Topics: Cloud Industry• Regulation• AI•

🏦AI Is Turning Clouds Into Banks

Louise Matsakis of Semafor reported an important scoop this week: the White House’s upcoming executive order on AI may require cloud computing platforms to share customer information with regulators. If this scoop turns out to be true, this EO will basically implement a

Topics: AI• Regulation•

🤖EU, China, US: Three Different Attitudes Toward AI Regulation

One interesting aspect of the fast-evolving landscape of generative AI is the global consensus on the need to regulate it. This was not the case at the dawn of the Internet or the early days of mobile social media. Perhaps precisely because regulators regretted

Topics: Regulation• China•

RESTRICT China

From time to time, I like to read the full text of a legislative bill, if only to put my past work experience at the White House and my law degree to some good use. What caught my attention recently was the RESTRICT Act,

Topics: AI• Regulation• China•

So Which Algorithms Do the Chinese Regulators Have?

Back in January, [http://www.cac.gov.cn/2022-01/04/c_1642894606364259.htm] the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), in coordination with several other regulatory bodies, enshrined a new policy to regulate how algorithms are used in Chinese Internet companies. Seven months later, the

Topics: IPO• China• Regulation•

Let the “Great Delisting” Begin

Last week, the SEC dropped the final “regulatory shoe” by specifying the rules and procedures [https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-250] that will implement the accounting compliance requirements outlined in the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) on foreign companies listed on US

Topics: Regulation• Facebook• China•

Removing China’s “Startup Debt”

I’ve been struggling to come up with an elegant analogy to explain China’s regulatory crackdown on its tech industry. After observing this year’s Singles Day [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles%27_Day], I think I finally found it. Everything that’

Topics: Agora• Regulation• Developer•

Revisiting Agora ($API)

Agora (ticker: $API) is a public company I’ve been following for a long time. Back in January, I wrote “What Does Agora Do? [https://interconnected.blog/what-does-agora-api-do/]” to explain its core technology, founding story, and API-based business model. The post went minorly viral,

Topics: Regulation• Huawei• IPO•

Chinese Government Turf Battle: Tomorrow's News; 明日要闻 (July 2021)

Hello Interconnected Readers: Today, I’m reconceptualizing a section of Interconnected. It used to be a weekly news summary [https://interconnected.blog/tag/weekly/] of six stories from both English language and Chinese language sources. Now, it’s a new monthly product called, "

Topics: IPO• Regulation•

Lame Duck Delisting

Sneaking in big announcements on the eve of major holidays seems to be en vogue with regulators these days. China’s State Administration for Market Regulations announced its antitrust investigation into Alibaba on Christmas Eve, so I spent Christmas Day writing “ Alibaba and Antitrust

Topics: IPO• SPAC• Regulation•

November 22, 2020: Birthday or Birthplace

Hello Interconnected Readers: Next week is both Thanksgiving week in the US and my birthday week. (Programming note: I will not publish my usual Thursday deep dive analysis due to the holiday.) [If you’d like to skip ahead to the six news stories

Topics: Alibaba• Jack Ma• Regulation•

Jack Ma, P2P Lending, Responsibility, Legacy

When I was in my 20s, I dreamed of becoming a presidential speech writer. I’d stay up reading books, like Ted Sorensen’s memoir “Counselor [https://www.amazon.com/COUNSELOR-Life-at-Edge-History/dp/0060798718/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3D8HHRP3NCZ3O&dchild=1&keywords=

Topics: Oracle• ByteDance• Regulation•

Era of Regulatory Grift: TikTok-Oracle, NXP-Qualcomm, Arm-Nvidia

The dictionary definition of the word “grift” is as follows: “to acquire money or property illicitly [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grift]”. It may be a strong word, but also more or less encapsulates the regulatory ethos that’s governing cross-border technology businesses these

Topics: ByteDance• Regulation• Open Source•

A Framework to (Dis)trust and Verify TikTok

Last week, the New York Times tech columnist, Kevin Roose, wrote a well-reasoned piece [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/technology/tiktok-china-ban-model.html] arguing that the U.S. government should not ban TikTok, but use it as an example and opportunity to build

Topics: Huawei• China• Regulation•

Why Huawei Should IPO in America

Huawei should IPO in America. Not London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Frankfurt, or Toronto, but New York -- the heart of America’s capital market. In fact, Huawei should file its S1 paperwork as soon as the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) passes Congress

Topics: Cloud Industry• Regulation•

How To Tax Cloud Computing?

Taxing cloud computing is not my idea. It’s billionaire Mark Cuban’s idea. I first learned about it during his interview on the Pomp Podcast [https://youtu.be/Dz0uoaqyx44?t=791], then again in another interview with POLITICO [https://www.politico.com/newsletters/

Topics: Ridesharing• Regulation•

Why We Should Regulate Ridesharing Like Buses and Restaurants

In my last post, I shared my thoughts on why [https://interconnected.blog/when-ridesharing-replaces-public-transportation/] large ridesharing services around the world will recover and thrive after the global COVID-19 pandemic is over, and meaningfully replace public transportation everywhere. When will the virus be under control