Ep. 174: AI and policy, both foreign and domestic
About this episode
Darren interviews Janet Egan about AI policy and its implications for Australia, discussing the competitive landscape between the US and China and Australia's National AI Plan.
In an episode recorded just before Christmas, Darren interviews Janet Egan, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS, about AI policy and its implications for Australia. Janet (who started her career in the Australian government) frames the current AI landscape as a two-horse race between the US and China, given vastly asymmetric investment levels. She introduces “compute policy” as a tractable governance lever, explaining that the physical infrastructure required for AI—specialised chips, data centres, and energy—offers regulatable chokepoints unlike easily transferable data or algorithms. The US strategy focuses on scale and removing barriers to advancement, while China, constrained by export controls on advanced semiconductors, pursues a diffusion-oriented approach emphasising open-source models and practical applications. Turning to Australia's recently released National AI Plan, Janet offers a mixed assessment. She praises the establishment of an AI Safety Institute and the acknowledgment that data centres matter, while noting the plan avoided overly restrictive regulation that could stifle investment. However, she argues the…
Topics covered
- AI policy
- Australia
- US-China relations
- compute policy
- data centres
- renewable energy
Keywords
- technology
- national security
- investment
- regulation
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