Chinese AI labs are catching up quickly, with recently released GLM-5.2 and Meituan releasing LongCat-2.0 (trained and run entirely on domestic chips). Recently, a group of U.S. AI researchers traveled to China to get a firsthand look at the country’s fast-moving AI ecosystem. During the trip, they visited AI labs and companies across Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, meeting with teams from Alibaba, Moonshot AI, Zhipu AI, Tsinghua University, Meituan, Xiaomi, Qwen, Ant Group, and Nathan Lambert @natolambert , a prominent AI researcher known for his work on RLHF and open-source AI, joined the trip. What did someone who has spent years at the front lines of America’s open-model movement see when he stepped inside China’s AI labs? How is the competition between the United States and China changing? And what does the next phase of the global AI race look like? In this episode of Silicon Valley 101, we flew to Seattle and sit down with Nathan to talk about what he learned in China — and where he believes the AI world is heading next. English version: Chinese subtitle version: