:D:D:D:D:D:D
Central Intelligence Agency director Bill Burns announced in October that the agency is creating two major new “mission centers,” one focusing on China and the other on frontier technologies. This action reflects his judgment that China is the “most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century” and that the “main arena of competition and rivalry” between China and the US will be advanced technologies. The question Americans should ask themselves is: Could China win the tech race?
A new report on Harvard’s “Great Technological Rivalry” answers: Yes. The report is not alarmist, but it still concludes that China has made such extraordinary strides that it is now an all-out competitor. In each of the fundamental technologies of the 21st century (artificial intelligence, semiconductors, 5G wireless, quantum information science, biotechnology and green energy), China could soon become the global leader. In some areas it is already number 1.
Last year, China produced 50% of the world’s computers and cell phones; the United States produced only 6%. China produces 70 solar panels for each produced in the United States, sells four times the number of electric vehicles, and has nine times as many 5G base stations, with network speeds five times faster than America’s.
In advanced technology likely to have the greatest effect on the economy and security over the next decade, artificial intelligence, China is ahead of the United States in crucial areas. A spring 2021 report from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence warned that China is poised to overtake the United States as a global leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. US-born students earn about the same number of PhDs each year in fields related to artificial intelligence since 1990. while China is on track to achieve twice as many PhDs in science, technology engineering and mathematics as the United States by 2025. The Harvard report adds that the China now clearly outperforms the US in practical AI applications, including facial recognition, speech recognition, and fintech.
The United States still has a dominant position in the semiconductor industry, which it has held for nearly half a century. But China may soon catch up in two important areas: semiconductor manufacturing and chip design. Chinese semiconductor production overtook American production, with a share of global production rising to 15% from less than 1% in 1990, while the US share fell from 37% to 12%.
In 5G, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board reports that China is on track to replicate the economic and military benefits America has gained from being the global leader in 4G. China has installed 950,000 base stations against 100,000 in America. At the end of last year, 150 million Chinese were using 5G cell phones with an average speed of 300 megabits per second, while only six million Americans had access to 5G with speeds of 60 megabits per second. US 5G service providers have focused more on advertising :D:D:D their capabilities rather than building infrastructure.
The Communist Party of China has made no secret of its ambitions: China intends to become the world leader in technologies that will shape the decades to come. The party’s 2013 economic reform plan highlighted technological innovation as the way to avoid the trap of getting stuck as a middle-income country. The celebrated “Made in China 2025” program aims to dominate the domestic production of 10 emerging technologies, including 5G, AI and electric vehicles.
China also plans to extend its robotics leadership to bolster its position as the world’s manufacturing workshop. In May, Xi Jinping clearly stated that “technological innovation has become the main battlefield of the global playing field and competition for technological dominance will grow unprecedented.” It is surprising how successful China has been in achieving its ambitious technology goals.
In summary, although the United States remains the world leader in many major competitions, including aeronautics, medicine and nanotechnology, China has emerged as a serious competitor. Fortunately, Americans are starting to realize this reality. In June, the Senate passed the Innovation and Competition Act with bipartisan support, authorizing $ 250 billion in science and technology investments over the next five years. Unfortunately, that legislation has stalled in the House and faces an uncertain future as part of the annual defense bill.
The most recent congressional spending proposals, such as the $ 1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the $ 1.7 trillion social spending package, have included investments in research and development in areas such as green technologies and energy storage. While these investments are badly needed, it will take more attention and investment in strategic technologies to compete with China. Unless the United States can organize a national response analogous to the mobilization that created the technologies that won World War II, China could soon dominate the technologies of the future and the opportunities they will create.
Mr. Allison, a Harvard government professor, is the author of Thucydides’ Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Trap? (2017). Schmidt was CEO of Google, 2001-11 and executive chairman of Google and its successor, Alphabet Inc., 2011-17 and is co-author of “The Age of AI: And Our Human Future” (2021).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-will-soon-lead-the-us-in-tech-global-leader-semiconductors-5g-wireless-green-energy-
11638915759#comments_sector
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/GreatTechRivalry_ChinavsUS_211207.pdf