I read AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee and reviewed it as part of my ongoing review series.

Quick review: This book by Dr. Kai Fu Lee touched on a lot of themes I have been reading about for some time: artificial intelligence, China’s economic and technological rise and the similarities and differences between the US and China’s startup environment. Dr. Lee is certainly well versed in these subjects considering his background, having developed the world’s first speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie Mellon, where he then went on to become an executive at Apple, SGI, Microsoft and then led Google’s efforts in China. He now, among other things, runs Sinovation Ventures, a venture firm that invests in both the US and Chinese market. Overall I thought the book was quite an informative read (albeit at times came a tad self-serving and effusive in his praise for the Chinese market).