China already has the compute to train its own Mythos-like AI: Nvidia CEO

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that China already has the computing power and data center capacity necessary to train an AI model at the same level as Anthropic’s AI model Claude Mythos, which could threaten global cybersecurity.

Huang was asked in an interview on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast on Wednesday whether the Chinese government’s access to chips to train a model like Claude Mythos — which has cyberoffensive capabilities — could be a threat to US national security.

Mythos was trained on a “fairly mundane capacity,” Huang said.

“The amount of capacity and the type of compute it was trained on is abundantly available in China, so you just have to first realize that chips exist in China.”

Anthropic limited access to its new AI model in April after it identified thousands of software vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers, raising concerns about potential misuse in cyberattacks. A Chinese-made AI model with the same capability could wreak havoc if misused.

Huang said that the amount of compute China has is “enormous.”

“They have datacenters that are sitting completely empty, fully powered. You know, they have ghost cities, they have ghost datacenters too. They have so much infrastructure capacity. If they wanted to, they [could] just gang up more chips.”

Jensen Huang speaking on China’s AI capacity. Source: Dwarkesh Patel

A call for dialogue, not conflict

Huang added that China manufactures 60% of the world’s mainstream chips, has some of the best computer scientists, has 50% of the world’s AI researchers and an abundance of energy.

“Victimizing them, turning them into an enemy, likely isn’t the best answer,” he said. “They are an adversary.”

“We want the United States to win. But I think having a dialogue and having research dialogue is probably the safest thing to do.”