— China already dominates exports of AI-powered facial recognition technology, spreading its high-tech surveillance expertise worldwide in a trend likely only to accelerate.
— The country’s popular “Luban workshop” initiative, a global vocational training program that has educated thousands around the world, is raising up a crop of AI-trained workers in developing economies.
— Chinese tech companies were the United Arab Emirates’ preeminent AI company, which in turn the world’s largest AI supercomputer.
The upshot may well be an AI future in which the United States’ and Europe’s painstaking agreements on safe, rights-respecting AI are rendered obsolete by a world already hardwired with Chinese AI systems — winning Beijing favor among non-Western nations and setting de facto authoritarian standards for the technology’s development globally. For China observers, this will sound familiar. Beijing has already financed and built massive global infrastructure through its Belt and Road Initiative in an effort to create both economic reliance and political loyalty.
In fact it is part of the Belt and Road — with the potential for being a much cheaper, quicker and more potent way for China to build its influence. The flow of data could, ultimately, be a far more powerful political tool than the flow of cars and trains. If China’s build-it-first AI strategy works, it could be disastrous for American interests abroad. To compete with China’s efforts, the United States needs a far more expansive vision of how to empower other nations with the education, tools and infrastructure needed to jump start their own AI efforts. If the United States is to truly lead the world in AI, it must not only lead the conversation on its rules, but also lay the foundations for its dissemination to the world — or risk losing out to Beijing.