Not too long ago, NVIDIA was a niche tech company known for the graphics cards that powered computer gaming. Thanks to skyrocketing growth over the past few years, today, it’s a $4 trillion behemoth that designs cutting-edge chips necessary for frontier AI development. It’s an American company based in Santa Clara, CA. But, like so many other companies, it relies on foreign firms to manufacture its designs—primarily Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Intel is the only major American company that manufactures its own advanced semiconductors, or chips, but the once iconic firm is on an opposite trajectory. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Intel’s microprocessors powered over 90% of PCs and the company was one of the world’s most valuable. But intel missed the boat on two major tech developments—smartphones and AI—leaving the company a shell of its former glory.

NVIDIA soared while Intel declined, but the two share in common a rollercoaster relationship with Washington and the Trump Administration over their ties to China. After moving to ban NVIDIA from exporting its H20 chip to China, President Trump reversed the ban in exchange for NVIDIA giving a 15% cut of the sales to the US government. Last month, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan came under fire for his ties to and investments in Chinese companies, leading Trump to call for his immediate resignation. A few weeks later, Trump announced that the US government would take a 10% stake in Intel for about $10 billion in outstanding CHIPS Act grants, and Trump praised Tan for his affirmed commitments to US interests.

The two companies are at the heart of the most significant tech policy debates in the world—from industrial policy to how to balance a desire to export American technology with the need to safeguard trade secrets and AI advantages. Evan is joined by Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of American Compass. Oren has been a staunch supporter of the CHIPS Act and industrial policies that he believes are necessary to restore high-tech American manufacturing, particularly in semiconductors. He’s also been highly critical of the Administration’s recent moves to allow NVIDIA to export more of its chips to China.

Read his op-ed in The Washington Post on NVIDIA’s H20 and his newsletter on the topic, as well as his recent op-ed in Commonplace on NVIDIA’s potential antitrust problems. See his newsletter here for more on his reaction to the U.S. government’s equity stake in Intel.

This week, we're crossposting this episode where our own Evan Swarztrauber joined American Moment CEO Nick Solheim on the Moment of Truth podcast to discuss the evolving politics of Big Tech on both left and right.

Evan draws on his FCC experience during the net neutrality debates to explore how conservative thinking on tech regulation has shifted. He and Nick discuss key moments like the Parler de-platforming and examine whether recent conservative support for antitrust enforcement represents a genuine policy evolution or short-term political expediency.

From Google's search dominance to content moderation battles, they unpack the tension between free market principles and concerns about corporate power over speech. The discussion offers insights into how tech policy debates are reshaping both ideology and regulatory approaches.

When Stanford students Elsa Johnson and Garret Molloy began investigating Chinese intelligence operations on their campus for the Stanford Review, they uncovered something far more extensive than expected: a systematic intelligence network that has transformed thousands of Chinese students into assets for Beijing's technology collection efforts. Their investigation revealed that between 20,000 and 50,000 Chinese students studying in America receive funding from Beijing's China Scholarship Council, with many maintaining contact with "handlers" who expect regular intelligence reports.

This discovery exposes a fundamental asymmetry in how China and America approach academic exchange. Beijing leverages our relatively open research environment through "nontraditional collection"—crowdsourced intelligence gathering through students and researchers—while maintaining strict control over their own institutions. China wants access to our openness while preserving their own secrecy.

But America's response threatens to undermine the very qualities that make our universities innovative. The trade-off seems impossible: remain vulnerable to systematic exploitation or adopt surveillance methods that mirror authoritarian systems. Can universities maintain their innovative edge while protecting sensitive research? Johnson and Molloy's investigation reveals how these questions will shape the future of American higher education in an age of great power competition.

Note: The Stanford Review was erroneously referred to as the "Stanford Economic Review" once in this episode.