China racing for AI military edge over US — Report

WASHINGTON: A research arm of the US intelligence community just wrapped up a competition to see who could develop the best facial recognition technology.

The challenge: identify as many passengers as possible walking on an aircraft boarding ramp.

Of all the entries, it was a Chinese start-up company called Yitu Tech that walked away with the US$ 25,000 prize this month, the highest of three cash awards.

The competition was one of many examples cited in a report by a US-based think tank about how China’s military might leverage its country’s rapid advances in artificial intelligence to modernise its armed forces and, potentially, seek advantages against the United States.

“China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority relative to the United States but rather has become a true peer (competitor) that may have the capability to overtake the United States in AI,” said the report, written by Elsa Kania at the Centre for a New American Security ( CNAS) and due to be released yesterday.

Future US- China competition in AI, Kania wrote, “could alter future economic and military balances of power.”

Alphabet Inc’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who heads a Pentagon advisory board, delivered a similar warning about China’s potential at a recent gathering in Washington.

Schmidt noted that China’s national plan for the future of artificial intelligence, announced in July, calls for catching up to the United States in the coming years and eventually becoming the world’s primary AI innovation center.

“I’m assuming that our lead will continue over the next five years, and that China will catch up extremely quickly. So, in five years we’ll kind of be at the same level, possibly,” Schmidt said told the conference, which was also hosted by CNAS.