US approaching ‘critical window’ in world-defining tech competition with China: Report

[beijingwalker]

US approaching ‘critical window’ in world-defining tech competition with China: Report​

“Losing the competition with China is not just about preserving abstract principles and political institutions – it will lead to the transformation of our daily lives in ways that will be impossible to ignore," according to a new report by the Special Competitive Studies Project.​

By JASPREET GILLon
September 13, 2022 at 10:41 AM

Artificial intelligence and technology graphic. (Getty images)

WASHINGTON — A compromised open internet, widespread technology-enabled surveillance and a world dependent on China for most core digital technologies. Those are just some of the worrying potential outcomes to be expected if the US doesn’t act within the next few years to maintain its global technological dominance, according to a new report published by a group of defense innovation experts.

The technological competition with China “is going to be the defining feature of global politics for the rest of our lives,” Bob Work, former deputy defense secretary, told reporters Tuesday. “And it is going to determine who is the greatest economic power in the 21st century. It’s going to determine who is the greatest military power. It is a competition that we simply must win.”

The nearly 200-page “Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness” report, released on Tuesday, is the first report published by the Special Competitive Studies Project, led by former Google CEO and co-chairman of the US government’s National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) Eric Schmidt and Work, who serves on the group’s board of advisors. The Special Competitive Studies Project is a private outfit, formed after the NSCAI’s work concluded last October.

The report builds on several ideas from the NSCAI and focuses on three technology “battlegrounds” with China that they say the US must win: microelectronics, fifth-generation wireless technology (5G) and AI. The report also notes where it sees the US already behind.

“In our judgment, China leads the United States in 5G, commercial drones, offensive hypersonic weapons, and lithium battery production,” the report says. “The United States has modest leads in biotech, quantum computing, commercial space technologies, and cloud computing, but these could flip to the China column. In the AI competition, the United States has a small lead with China catching up quickly across the AI stack.”

The report states the 2025 to 2030 time frame represents a “critical window where tech needs and strategic competition will come to a head in the contest.” Ylli Bajraktari, CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project, told reporters on Tuesday the time frame “is a really important period for our country and the global geopolitical security.”

What would a world in which the US loses the technology competition look like? According to the report, China would control the digital infrastructure of the world, have the dominant position in the world’s technology platforms, potentially compromise foreign infrastructure and control the production of critical technologies, like microelectronics.


“Even if only some of this came to pass, the world would be a darker place for the United States and democracy,” the report says. “Losing the competition with China is not just about preserving abstract principles and political institutions — it will lead to the transformation of our daily lives in ways that will be impossible to ignore.”

A New Public-Private Model Of Cooperation

The report argues that the US innovation ecosystem is under-performing for five reasons: Less investment in technologies, like semiconductor production, due to high costs/risks; regulatory hurdles; uncertainty surrounding necessary accompanying innovations or infrastructure; outdated acquisition models and a distorted investment market.

A potential solution to overcoming these challenges and connecting the commercial, academic and government sectors in the US to build an advantage in critical technologies might lie in a new “public-private model” technology strategy process proposed in the report that would provide a strategy to make decisions on technology priorities and create “action plans” to develop them.

The proposed hub, which the report states the US currently lacks, would blend public and private resources and be guided by an evaluation framework that analyzes technologies, whether adversaries have an advantage over the US and what needs to be done to improve the US’s position. The action plans for those technologies would outline specific goals for investing in and accelerating their development.

“Recognizing key technologies and building an action plan are necessary steps, but the U.S. ecosystem must actually act,” according to the report. “To best compete, the United States must recognize and work to close holes in its innovation ecosystem, particularly concerning ‘deep tech,’ to fully harness latent potential. Mobilizing a whole-of-effort requires matching the power of China’s fused system, but doing so by drawing on American strengths, not mimicking China’s state-centric, authoritarian approach.”

Working with other nations like Japan, the United Kingdom, India and Israel can also help inform national technology policies, the report says. Work told reporters building a “democracy-led techno-industrial alliance” to stay ahead of adversaries can help, but remains more of an aspirational goal for now.

“It’s easier said than done,” Work said. “We had a very similar recommendation coming out of the National Security Commission on AI. It was well received at the Department of State. They started discussions with our European allies immediately and I think our Asian allies too, and said, how would we go about doing something like this?

“So this is more of an aspirational goal now… We’re focused on the 2025 to 2030 timeframe,” he continued. ‘And with good diplomacy, I think we could have the framework for a techno-industrial alliance in that timeframe if we really pursued it.”

US approaching 'critical window' in world-defining tech competition with China: Report - Breaking Defense

“Losing the competition with China is not just about preserving abstract principles and political institutions – it will lead to the transformation of our daily lives in ways that will be impossible to ignore," according to a new report by the Special Competitive Studies Project.

breakingdefense.com

 

[beijingwalker]

US will lose China tech war if 5G, AI, microchip ‘core’ fronts are not fortified, report warns​

• Years between 2025 and 2030 to be critical, and the US must take action on three fronts or lose, first Special Competitive Studies Project report says
• ‘We only have one budget cycle to get this right,’ SCSP chief Ylli Bajraktari tells Defence Writers Group event

Published: 1:00am, 14 Sep, 2022

The working of a wearable AI-powered bionic hand being demonstrated at a tech conference in Chinese capital Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

The US could lose the new technology competition to China if it does not take dramatic action on three core fronts soon, a new report has warned.

The years between 2025 and 2030 would be a critical time window for the new tech arms race, in which Beijing might win the edge if its plans work out, according to the report by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

“We only have one budget cycle to get this right,” SCSP chief Ylli Bajraktari told a Defence Writers Group event earlier.

“If we don’t get our act together in these three core battlegrounds … in terms of bio, in terms of next-generation computer power, in terms of next-generation inventions, it’s not going to happen in the countries that are at the forefront of democracies today. Everything will happen in China.”

The group’s first report, titled “Mid-Decade Challenges to National Competitiveness” and released on Monday, identified three “core battlegrounds” for technological superiority – microelectronics, fifth-generation wireless technology (5G) and artificial intelligence (AI).

China had put great efforts into these areas, it warned, saying the US and its allies were “perilously and unwittingly close to ceding the strategic technology landscape and along with it the capacity to shape the future”.
Bajraktari noted that China had moved much faster on 5G, while warning that the US “cannot keep playing catch-up like we have on 5G and microelectronics supply chains”.

In a statement for the release of the report, SCSP board of advisers member Nadia Schadlow said: “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the United States’ chief ideological opponent, largest economic competitor, most capable technology peer, and most threatening military rival. Technology is central to all parts of the competition.”

The fierce US-China technological competition was shaping the future of geopolitics and the contest between democracies and autocracies, the report argued.

It said the US must take action across a broad range of public policy arenas to invest in its own technology advantages, strengthen the techno-industrial base, and deploy disruptive technologies democratically and responsibly.

It highlighted American advantages, such as being the global leader in talent, tech companies, financial markets, innovative culture, and alliance networks, and suggested that harnessing them could well “put the United States in a stronger strategic position in the world”.

The report identified six challenges the US must overcome to restore its competitiveness, namely, harnessing the new geometry of innovation, restoring the sources of techno-economic advantage, developing an American approach to AI governance, remaking the US global leadership in the age of tech competition, meeting the new requirements in the future conflict and defence, and collecting and processing intelligence in an age of data-driven competition.

The SCSP, which evolved from the Congress-mandated National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, focuses on advocating for the long-term technological competitiveness of the US.

US ‘perilously close’ to losing AI, 5G war to China, report warns

Years between 2025 and 2030 to be critical, and the US must take action on three fronts or lose, first Special Competitive Studies Project report says

www.scmp.com