Jorge F. Negrete P.

Its mission was to “explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man has gone before”. I am referring to the Enterprise, the mythical starship from the 1966 television series Star Trek.

The story of Intel is destined to be like that TV show, somewhere between science fiction, technological exploration, and the epic drama of a company that keeps reinventing itself. I am talking about a company that has fought the greatest technological battles “where no man has gone before.

The search for and conquest of planets has been an obsession of governments and geopolitics, especially in the 1960s, the conquest of space and the arrival to the moon. At that time, Russia and the United States started a war to prove which country would get there first. President Kennedy led this historic moment by saying, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. He immediately proposed that the United States put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. Apollo 11 accomplished that goal in 1969.

A few years ago, I pointed out that the technological frontier is not the universe, but the minuscule, where we talk about atoms and nanometers. The digital world has only two pillars: the digital infrastructure that massifies and connects the digital society, and semiconductors that enable the digitization of everything.

Gordon Moore was an American businessman, engineer and visionary, co-founder and president of Intel. Between 1965 and 1975, Moore observed that the number of components on an integrated circuit doubled every two years. In other words, computing power was doubling every two years. Carver Mead, Moore’s colleague, popularized the term “Moore’s Law” to define this phenomenon.

Mead demonstrated that as transistors decreased in size, they would become “faster, better, cooler, and cheaper as they become miniaturized.” This prediction is an empirical reality in the semiconductor industry and has an impact on innovation and technological change.

Intel began an exciting journey that in the Star Trek series is referred to as Ad Astra per Aspera, which means: through difficulties, towards the stars. In this case, I take a liberty and substitute Star Trek with Intel and the phrase would read Ad Astra per Diminutum, which means: through difficulties, towards the tiny.

The semiconductor war has a long history. Much of Intel’s intellectual capital is located with its competitors and in different parts of the world. The nearshoring of processors began with the relocation of factories to Taiwan (TSMC) and Europe (ASML) for a technology developed by Intel in the design of the machines that manufacture the processors.

During President Trump’s first term, the new cold war began, which we could call “The Digital War,” and it continued with President Biden. The US wants the semiconductor industry back to  its territory and does not want China to receive this technology.

The times we live in have propelled semiconductor companies to the top of the list of the largest companies in the world: Nvidia and TSMC, for example. This technology unleashes and enables Artificial Intelligence, the new digital resource of our society.

This is where the appointment of Lip Bu Tan comes in. He is the new CEO of Intel and a legend at the age of 65. Bu Tan was born in Malaysia, raised in Singapore and educated in California. He is the president of the most successful investment fund in semiconductors: Walden International, and an entrepreneur with the desire and experience to execute. He brings with him the culture of a start-up and the urgency of an investment fund to run the most iconic processor company on the planet.

In the words of Mr. Spock and his Vulcan culture, “live long and prosper”.

President of Digital Policy Law

X / @fernegretep

Jorge F. Negrete P.

Is the digital war between the U.S. and China recent? No. Does it start with DeepSeek? No. Does it impact digital geopolitics and the future of the global economy? Yes.

China. In 2017, a report published on LinkedIn (Artificial Intelligence Global Talent Report) noted that, within the top 700 AI personalities, “the US outnumbers China by more than double.” According to the report, there were also a total of 1.9 million AI professionals. Most were in the U.S. and only about 50,000 in China.

On July 8, 2017, China’s State Council launched the New Generation AI Development Plan, where it noted that “the rapid development of AI will profoundly change human social life and change the world. This plan is formulated…in order to seize major strategic opportunities for the development of Artificial Intelligence, to be a pioneer in the development of Artificial Intelligence and a world power in science and technology.” 

Soon after, President Xi Jinping issues the historic speech where he announces that China will be an AI powerhouse by 2030. Since then, China has invested more than $150 billion. Today, China leads the AI patent race in terms of volume (WIPO). Between 2014 and 2023, more than 38,000 generative AI inventions are from China, almost six times more than the USA.

The shock. In a conversation with Carmen Aristegui, she called the arrival of DeepSeek “the shock,” the day after the announcements of $500 billion by OpenAI and SoftBank, and Zuckerberg’s mega Data Center.

This company’s app arrived with an efficiency comparable to ChatGPT, but with an investment of six million dollars and the use of 10,000 Nvidia processors. But the strategic blow was its free and open source nature. An effective propaganda blow to the waterline of digital geopolitics. The effect? ​​A collapse of nearly 600 billion dollars in Nvidia’s value and a series of questions about the American model of technological development.

You have to be careful, this is circumstantial and has a marketing effect. Mustafa Suleyman, president of Microsoft AI, pointed out in his book “The Coming Wave” that “a central attribute of technology is its tendency to become cheaper, more efficient and more widespread.” This is supported by the mythical Moore’s Law, when it points out that every two years the data processing capacity will double.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, strikes a blow to his partner OpenAI and announces that “they will soon be able to use the DeepSeek R1 model with Copilot+ and in the vast ecosystem of GPUs (graphics processors) available in Windows.” In other words, China strikes on several fronts, including a system of competitive pressure, within the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership.

Europe. Responding urgently, presents “The Compass of Competitiveness”, where it proposes closing the innovation gap, making it easier for companies to operate throughout the EU by simplifying regulations and laws, and supporting the development of new technologies: advanced materials, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, robotics, and space technologies

China has been investing in AI for 8 years and its progress is spectacular. The small amount of money and few processors from DeepSeek are a mix of reality and propaganda. The US dominates AI in terms of impact, technological efficiency, and investments. It has dominance in the heart of AI: processors. US patents are cited almost seven times more for their quality than Chinese patents, and they concentrate the largest direct investments in processors, data centers, and software.

The war is being fought between the United States and China, with Europe far behind, which sells its model with the values ​​of the West.

This is the war of a two-headed dragon, where one head seeks moral hegemony and the other, the digital economy of the world.

President of Digital Policy & Law

X / @fernegretep