How Export Controls Helped Not Hurt China & Power is the Bottleneck to AI | Perplexity CEO

With Harry Stebbings, Aravind Srinivas · Tuesday, June 16, 2026

This episode features Harry Stebbings and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, who discusses Perplexity's transformative impact on Google's search interface, shifting beyond answer engines to frontier AI agents. They delve into critical AI industry topics, including the "model is not the product" thesis, the infrastructural bottlenecks of power and data centers, the geopolitical implications of US export controls on China's AI development, and a positive vision for AI as an entrepreneurial catalyst for wealth creation rather than job destruction.

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Key takeaways

AI's core bottleneck isn't just advanced chips but the physical infrastructure for data centers, especially reliable power supplies. Read more →
Forget building the best AI model. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas believes the underlying model is quickly becoming a utility. The real value for founders now sits in building sophisticated orchestration systems that make models useful, not just powerful. Read more →