An autonomous delivery vehicle by Damo is displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 8, 2021. REUTERS/Yilei Sun
LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – China has won the artificial intelligence battle with the United States and is heading towards global dominance because of its technological advances, the Pentagon's former software chief told the Financial Times.
China, the world’s second largest economy, is likely to dominate many of the key emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics within a decade or so, according to Western intelligence assessments.
Nicolas Chaillan, the Pentagon's first chief software officer who resigned in protest against the slow pace of technological transformation in the U.S. military, said the failure to respond was putting the United States at risk.
"We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion," he told the newspaper. "Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal."
China was set to dominate the future of the world, controlling everything from media narratives to geopolitics, he said.
Chaillan blamed sluggish innovation, the reluctance of U.S. companies such as Google (GOOGL.O) to work with the state on AI and extensive ethical debates over the technology.
Google was not immediately available for comment outside business hours.
Chinese companies, Chaillan said, were obliged to work with their government and were making "massive investment" in AI without regard to ethics.
He said U.S. cyber defences in some government departments were at "kindergarten level".
Chaillan announced his resignation at the beginning of September, saying military officials were repeatedly put in charge of cyber initiatives for which they lacked experience.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Air Force said Frank Kendall, secretary of the U.S. Air Force, had discussed with Chaillan his recommendations for the department’s future software development following his resignation and thanked him for his contributions, the FT said.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Subscribe for our daily curated newsletter to receive the latest exclusive Reuters coverage delivered to your inbox.
Square Inc Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said on Friday the fintech firm is looking to build a bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals as well as businesses.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.
Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology.
The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs.
The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals.
Information, analytics and exclusive news on financial markets – delivered in an intuitive desktop and mobile interface.
Access to real-time, reference, and non-real time data in the cloud to power your enterprise.
Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved