China racing for AI military edge over US: report

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A research arm of the US intelligence community just wrapped up a competition to see who could develop the best facial recognition technology. The challenge: identify as many passengers as possible walking on an aircraft boarding ramp.

Of all the entries, it was a Chinese start-up company called Yitu Tech that walked away with the prize of 25,000 US dollars this month, the highest of three cash awards.

The competition was one of many examples cited in a report by a US-based think tank about how China’s military might leverage its country’s rapid advances in artificial intelligence to modernize its armed forces and, potentially, seek advantages against the United States.

"China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority relative to the United States but rather has become a true peer (competitor) that may have the capability to overtake the United States in AI," said the report, written by Elsa Kania at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and due to be released on Tuesday.

Chinese navy sailors/AP Photo

Future US-China competition in AI, Kania wrote, "could alter future economic and military balances of power."

Alphabet’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who heads a Pentagon advisory board, delivered a similar warning about China’s potential at a recent gathering in Washington.

Schmidt noted that China’s national plan for the future of artificial intelligence, announced in July, calls for catching up to the United States in the coming years and eventually becoming the world’s primary AI innovation center.

"I‘m assuming that our lead will continue over the next five years and that China will catch up extremely quickly. So, in five years we’ll kind of be at the same level, possibly," Schmidt told the conference, which was also hosted by the CNAS.

Artificial intelligence, which promises to revolutionize transportation with the advent of self-driving cars and bring major advances to medicine, is also expected to have military applications that could alter the battlefield.

Some machine learning technology is already being applied to a Pentagon project that aims to have computers help sift through drone footage, reducing the work for human analysts.

Chinese military/AP Photo

In July, China’s State Council released an AI development plan to enhance its core AI industries and aiming to rival US tech giants such as Google and Microsoft. According to the State Council, the plan is a must for the country, as the global situation with China on national security and international competition is more and more complex.

In fact, the AI push plan comes as the US is poised to bolster its scrutiny of foreign investments. Some related to key high-tech industries, such as AI, are asked to pass strict scrutiny, reported Reuters in July, adding that it was because the US fear that "countries including China could access technology of strategic military importance."

According to the new plan, China plans to grow its AI industries’ value to more than 150 billion yuan by 2020 and 400 billion yuan by 2025.

Source(s): Reuters