Kenneth did not stop. He pressed on. "What if this company really is using domestic chips to deploy inference at scale?"
The Google representative hesitated.
He had no reason to reject Jensen's proposal outright at this point, but he had no need to support it either.
After a moment, he decided to hedge. "We don't have enough information to make that assessment."
Kenneth Chen smiled.
Jensen frowned slightly.
On Capitol Hill, no remark was made without a purpose, and no question was asked for nothing.
What was Kenneth trying to do by standing up and asking that question now?
Then Kenneth directed his question at Jensen. "Mr. Huang, the company you just mentioned was Source Intelligence Technology, correct? Are you saying our export controls caused this company to grow, caused it to develop a large model on par with Google's, and caused us to lose our edge in the AI race?"
Jensen's expression darkened.
This man was twisting his argument.
"My point is that if American companies withdraw completely from these markets, Chinese customers will be forced to seek alternatives. In the long run, that will weaken American technological influence." Jensen tried hard to steer the conversation back to his original reasoning.
Kenneth smiled. "Mr. Huang, here's the theory I'm hearing: a Chinese AI company releases a large model that some people call a world leader; it uses domestic chips to deploy inference clusters; then it acquires its own chip supplier in an attempt to build its own ecosystem-and we should sell it chips so it can go even further?"
A ripple of quiet laughter passed through the room.
Jensen was about to answer when Kenneth suddenly said, "Mr. Chairman, I yield."
Only then did Jensen realize that Kenneth had never intended to get any information out of him.
The