The acceleration in the development of new technologies is emblematic of increased competition between the world’s two technological superpowers. According to a recent report by Spectrum, the tensions that have existed between China and the United States for several years accelerated research in the field of tech.
Blame it on Bill Gates?
The starting point of this technological war between China and the United States certainly dates back to 1992, when Bill Gates introduced Microsoft to the emerging software market in China. Six years later, he opens Microsoft Research Asia, the company’s largest basic and applied computational research institute outside of the United States. Most of the Chinese collaborators of this research center subsequently founded or directed other leading technological institutions, on behalf of China. Among them is the founder of ByteDance, owner of TikTok and one of the most successful companies in the world.
Apple sanctions the assembler of its iPhones, neglecting its staff
Today, artificial intelligence is at the center of the debate. Latest example with OpenAI, which unveiled in June 2020 its impressive GPT-3 natural language processing model. A year later, the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence at Tsinghua University released an even larger model, Wu Dao 2.0, with ten times more parameters. If the American GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters, the creators of Wu Dao 2.0 claim that it has 1.75 trillion. The Chinese model is able not only to generate text like GPT-3, but also images from text descriptions …
China and the United States have embarked on a never-ending race
According to the report of Spectrum, it is not a question of a simple bidding: “Whether the researchers involved like it or not, their governments are eager to integrate every advance of AI into their national security infrastructure and military capabilities.”. Technological domination is a sign of probable victory in a future war. A technological advantage also helps ensure the longevity and global influence of the government that owns it.
This is now the case with China, which uses AI to suppress dissidents or oppress peoples in their entirety, as is the case with Chinese Uyghur Muslims, but also to give its inhabitants a social note. An authoritarian model that promises economic prosperity to counter democracy, which the Soviet Union could never do. Surprisingly or ironically, China is a competitor that the United States has “Manufactured” with a consumer market that has fueled China’s export engine.
Behind this technological war, it is an armaments war that is being played out. According to Robert O. Work, former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, “The theory of victory took precedence over the rest. The objective is the destruction of the military system. The Chinese and Americans see it pretty much the same way. If one of them can detonate his adversary’s armaments network, the latter will no longer be able to operate and will no longer be able to achieve his objectives ”. Beyond the technological feats made public, China and the United States therefore seek to advance their military technologies.