China’s asserting military AI dominance through patents now. The U.S. will fall behind absent patent reform.

The US is quickly falling behind China in development of artificial intelligence, according to a report released today by data analytics firm Govini, making it nearly impossible for the US to win a war against the PLA if a conflict were to break out between the two global superpowers.

Govini releases annual reports measuring the performance of the federal government, looking at 15 top critical national security technologies through the lens of acquisition, procurement, supply chain, foreign influence and adversarial capital and science and technology.

Per this year’s report, the US is under-investing in practical, valuable AI capabilities while also becoming stagnant in the research and development stage. When looking at AI, machine learning and natural language processing, nine out of the 12 areas studied in the report still had over 65 percent of their funding tied up in R&D in 2023 — making the minority of these vital programs production-ready.

“Despite the fact that artificial intelligence is an incredibly, highly visible, arguably the most transformational technology that matters in the critical tech competition, not just for the United States, but around the world, the Department of Defense is still primarily attacking this as a research and development effort,” Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty said during a briefing Wednesday.

“While there is more to do in R&D for artificial intelligence, it is well past time for DoD to stop treating AI like it is just a science project,” she added.

Last year’s report revealed that the US was at risk of “weakness and dependence” as it falls behind China in the technology race. Similarly, the 2022 report found that the US wasn’t investing enough money in AI and ML to win the technological race against China.

“If you add in an AI advantage that the United States doesn’t have, it potentially tips the war into unwinnable [for the US],” Dougherty said of a potential US-China conflict.

She added that the ways China can weaponize AI don’t have to be kinetic, it can look like hacking into the US’s energy grid which would have a major impact on the warfighter.

While the DoD may not be moving fast enough in developments of AI and ML, Dougherty said the capabilities to do so are there.

“The AI aspects of our spending being so R&D focused, it tells me that we’re not actually moving this into the weapons systems and platforms that we’re deploying today, obviously, appropriately so given that it’s artificial intelligence. But, I believe that the department has a great framework to govern that and make sure that AI is used appropriately in a military context. So let’s get going on it,” she said.

The report also found that China has more patents than the US in 13 of 15 critical technology areas, further demonstrating how the US is falling behind in AI development. China sped up its patent grants over the past several years following its “14th Five Year Plan for Informatization Development,” Dougherty said.

“The way to think about patents is that it’s a leading indicator of technological dominance,” she said.

The DoD needs to perform in-depth patent analyses to figure out why it’s behind China in this regard because, after all, patents drive innovation, she said.