Are Investors Underestimating China AI? Ft. Kevin Carter, EMXETFs

This episode is sponsored by EMXETF.com

Kevin T. Carter joins Kyle to talk about TGRZ, the China AI LLM Tigers ETF, and why China’s role in the AI trade may be much bigger than most U.S. investors realize.

Kevin breaks down the AI market as a five-layer stack: electricity, chips, data centers, models, and applications. From there, he explains why TGRZ is focused on the model layer, where Chinese open-weight AI models like DeepSeek, Kimi K3, GLM, and Qwen are increasingly competing with U.S. models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others.

The conversation also gets into one of the biggest surprises from the episode: how differently China and the U.S. appear to view AI adoption. Kevin points to public sentiment around AI being roughly 80% favorable in China versus about 20% in the U.S., and Kyle explores whether that difference in adoption could matter as much as the technology itself.

They also discuss Jack Ma, Alibaba, the blocked Ant IPO, and why Kevin believes some of the risks investors associate with China are more complicated (and possibly more overblown) than the headlines suggest.

The episode closes with a look at AI infrastructure, data centers, power demand, underwater and space-based compute, and the broader question of whether AI destroys jobs, creates new ones, or does some combination of both.

As always, none of this is investment advice. TGRZ is speculative and volatile. Do your own research, understand the risks, and make sure any investment fits your own strategy.

Learn more at EMXETF.com.

Chapter Timestamps:00:00 — Cold Open: Why Chinese AI Models Are Different00:35 — Introduction: Rethinking the AI Race01:40 — TGRZ and What It Takes to Launch an ETF04:03 — The Five-Layer AI Stack06:25 — The Emerging Market “Mag Three”: Samsung, Hynix, and TSMC07:34 — Why TGRZ Focuses on the AI Model Layer08:03 — DeepSeek and the Cost Question10:58 — What Open-Weight AI Actually Means13:14 — Alibaba, Qwen, and China’s AI Ecosystem15:23 — Why U.S. Startups Are Using Chinese AI Models19:10 — Jack Ma, Ant IPO, and China Risk27:42 — TGRZ Volatility and Future EMXETF AI Products29:36 — Data Centers, Power Demand, and AI Infrastructure33:54 — AI Sentiment: China’s 80% Favorable vs. the U.S. at 20%36:50 — AI, Jobs, ATMs, Radiology, and What Comes Next40:08 — EMXETF.com, TGRZ Risk, and Closing Thoughts

Sponsors:For more than 20 years, the EMXETF team has been focused on technology and innovation across Emerging Markets. Today, we believe artificial intelligence