Ex-Google CEO: China is 6 months behind US on AI and has ‘infinite energy’

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said China is now just six months behind the U.S. in the global race to develop AI , warning that China has a major advantage when it comes to energy.

In an interview with Fast Company released Wednesday, Schmidt said the gap between the two countries has narrowed dramatically over the past two years, despite U.S. restrictions on China’s access to advanced computer chips.

“A year or two ago, it looked like China was a year or two behind. Now it looks like they’re six months behind, and there are many studies that show this,” Schmidt said.

The ex-Google chief, who helped advocate for the chip restrictions, said he initially believed they would slow China’s progress for about a decade. Instead, Chinese developers have found ways to build competitive AI systems using substantially less energy and computing power.

“I assumed they would work for about 10 years,” he said.

Schmidt said the U.S. still has the upper hand in advanced chips, talent and access to capital, but he argued that China has a significant advantage in building the infrastructure needed to support AI development.

“China has infinite energy, most of it renewable, something we said we were going to do in our country 10 years ago and failed to do,” he said.

He pointed to China’s rapid construction of data centers and power infrastructure, while American developers face lengthy delays connecting new facilities to the electrical grid.

“They don’t have interconnection queue waits that go on seven years. They don’t have the same kind of debates. They’re building the data centers, and they’re building them massively,” Schmidt said.

He estimated the U.S. will need between 60 gigawatts and 80 gigawatts of power by 2030 or 2031 to keep pace with AI demand, with each gigawatt costing roughly $50 billion.

“What we don’t have is the energy, and we don’t have the data centers,” he said.

His remarks come as the rapid expansion of AI data centers faces growing scrutiny over concerns about rising electricity costs and pressure on local water supplies.

Democratic lawmakers have already begun investigating the industry’s energy demands. Earlier this month, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) released a report examining how data centers could drive up costs.

The scrutiny could intensify if Democrats regain control of Congress in November, with lawmakers signaling plans to pursue tougher AI safety regulations and investigations into major technology companies.