U.S. and China Are Headed for an AI Collision

Oren Etzioni

Source Link

Trump and Xi Are Talking — But the U.S. and China Are Headed for an AI Collision

President Trump spoke by phone to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Monday November 24 and later posted on Truth Social, “Our relationship with China is extremely strong!” The warm feelings from Washington came on the heels of the two leaders holding a productive meeting in Korea recently and scheduling several more get-confabs for the year ahead.

But bubbling beneath the surface is a rivalry between the two countries over the most vital technology of the 21st century: artificial intelligence.

To understand the rivalry, consider a recent announcement by the U.S. Justice Department: on November 20, it charged two Americans, and two Chinese nationals, with a conspiracy to illegally export about 400 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) to China. Federal law requires that a license be secured for export of these technologies, which can be used to develop and strengthen AI.