Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur behind the XPrize Foundation, has long championed a future of technological promise, building a career on innovation competitions meant to solve grand challenges. But in a recent conversation in Hong Kong, a subtle shift in tone emerged as he addressed the current complexities of global scientific collaboration, clouded by geopolitical tensions and the looming threat of technological decoupling.
“One of the things that is important to realise is that human biology is conserved across 8 billion people, as is math and physics and chemistry,” he said. “So a breakthrough by a brilliant entrepreneur or scientist in Beijing is fully usable and accessible by a brilliant scientist in Boston. That elevates humanity as a whole.”
His cosmopolitan vision of scientific progress stands in contrast to the current political climate, in which the US, under the administration of President Donald Trump, has sought to curb international student visas and made drastic cuts to scientific funding and universities.
“There’s a huge amount of concern,” Diamandis said, pointing specifically to the cuts at the National Institutes of Health. “Unless it gets corrected and changed back, I think that the cuts being made … will have long-term implications to the speed of scientific discoveries.”
Diamandis spoke with the Post on May 28 while visiting Hong Kong for the UBS Asian Investment Conference. He is perhaps best known for incentivising breakthroughs through his XPrize competitions, which served as an early catalyst for the private space flight industry that spawned companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Discussing the more positive aspects of technological progress is clearly where he feels most comfortable.
“Our brains are wired for fear and scarcity, and my job through my work is to help people see the world in a different fashion,” he said.
