We Already Lost the Power Race to China. Now What?

Episode notes

"There will be a lot fewer people employed doing existing work in not just insurance, but in all business." Phillip reports from the press pool at Semafor World Economy 2026, where 500 CEOs, a quarter of the US Senate, and 20 G20 finance ministers spent two days in Washington DC sketching out the next decade. Inside: why the AI race is really the electricity race (and why we may have already lost it to China), the $10 trillion and 250 gigawatts Meta says AGI will cost, Senator Mark Kelly on the new commercial space economy, Levi's 50% DTC milestone, Ralph Lauren's experience-economy flex, and why Balzac saw the "exterminator economy" coming 200 years ago. Plus: white smoke from Apple Park. Key Takeaways: Space is getting a concentric-circle economy. NASA hands low-Earth orbit to private industry; the moon is next; Mars is the horizon. Sen. Mark Kelly laid out the vision at Semafor. AGI has a price tag, and it's $10T. Meta's Dina Powell McCormick framed the path forward: trillions in capital, 250GW of power, and geopolitical fallout to match. The AI race is actually the electricity race - and the US lost it five years ago. Chips and lithography aren't the bottleneck.

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