The global race for AI supremacy

In July 2017, China's State Council issued the New Generation Artificial Intelligence (AI) Development Plan. Through a three-step road map, China wants to become a world leader in AI by 2030.

This revelation triggered analysis globally to understand China's pursuit of AI. While most developed countries are already working towards AI-driven economy, developing countries like Bangladesh can only dream about such a prospect at this stage. The latter group can learn quite a lot from the pursuit of AI supremacy by China, USA, Russia and others.  

 China's AI plan is preceded by three major science and technology capacity development plans. Following its success in manufacturing, China had revealed in 2006 that the nation will focus on intelligent and frontier technologies as evident in the National Medium- and Long-Term Programme for Science and Technology Development (2006-2020).

Within six years of the implementation of the first plan, China strongly felt the necessity for accruing the capability of "intelligent equipment-manufacturing industry" as a "strategic emerging industry." In 2015, China spelled out a plan to address this necessity through the formulation of the Made in China 2025 plan. This is a decade-long blueprint to transform China "from a manufacturing giant into a world manufacturing power" through intelligent and innovative technologies.

China's response to the on-going development of Artificial Intelligence came into existence through the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020). The Chinese State Council stressed the plan for acquiring capability in AI and Robotics to address both security and commercial frontiers. The uniqueness in this last frontier of technology planning is worthy of investigation.

For quite some time, China has been in a catch-up mode to acquire technological prowess that can strengthen their manufacturing competitiveness.

China was similarly desperate for robotics for two reasons. On one hand, China had an urgency to rein in the hike in wages of workers in its manufacturing sectors. On the other hand, as many as 100 million factory workers were in the retirement queue. To address these issues, China wanted to acquire robotics technology that will lead to automation of factories.

 But, China's AI ambition offers the opportunity to address three major frontiers simultaneously. These are, National Security and Defence, State governance, and Economics of production. Once human-like intelligence is added to machinery and data, a powerful new frontier is likely to open up. And the strategy of fusing these three major frontiers with AI makes technology a powerful strategy to build an influential country, and also a powerful government. If up-gradation of military and governance capability with AI leads to the maturity of technology for supporting commercial innovations, AI can prove to be a nation-building pivotal strategy.

As reported by the Brookings, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a nationwide group of Russian students on their first day of school in September 2017 with the remark, "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humankind." He further added, "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." It might be difficult to comprehend today that AI capability can not only address economic prosperity but most importantly, AI poses the potential to dominate geopolitics. Because geopolitics is determined in large part by many of the same domains that AI is poised to revolutionise.

AI is not a secretly guarded, completely new technology though. It is a fundamental enabling technology that can be added to existing processes and services to make them smarter, more efficient, more accurate, and more useful. It's a combination of diverse commercially available component technologies such as sensors, software, pattern recognition, machine learning, and connectivity. Its implications could be articulated as four distinct waves of applications: Internet AI, Business AI, Perception AI, and Autonomous AI.

INTERNET AI - Internet websites and apps are the most significant sources of user-labelled data today. When a user clicks to buy on an e-commerce website, the AI is getting a label to learn from.

BUSINESS AI - Businesses such as Banks or Insurance companies that have large repositories of data can apply AI to historical or new data to connect to business processes and aid in decision-making. This is Business AI.

PERCEPTION AI - This involves digitising the physical world through sensors and smart devices, collecting new data that may have been previously unavailable, and using it to create new applications.

The previous three waves of AI are largely software driven.

AUTONOMOUS AI - This uses movement and tactile output to help AI make physical products autonomous such as self-driving cars, robots, and connected things. The application of AI along all these four frontiers basically covers all major areas of human livelihood on this planet.

Despite the huge potential, the lead-time for AI innovation maturity is lengthy. Often short-term commercial interest-driven approach is not sufficient to exploit this potential. In the typical S-curve of the technology life cycle, AI is still at the early stage. Many of the applications will require further maturity of the core technology.

The financing gap at this stage is a major issue. In the past, the USA addressed this gap between early-stage technology potential and the required maturity for commercial innovations by linking defence strategy to science and technology. Through this strategy, the USA has been successful in both defence and commercial fronts through improved technology.

To exploit the potential of AI, China has been obsessed with the concept of military-civil fusion (MCF) since 2013. This blurs the lines between civilian and military science and technological resources.

Russia enjoyed significant success of military capability through scientific discovery and technological innovation at gaining the military edge. But they could not link this success with commercial exploitation.

To fuse military capability building and economic growth for civilian prosperity with technology, there is a need for long-term close ties between the government and private companies that are leading AI development. Such ties should last over decades, while demanding long-term public policy support.

Linking institutions such as the national policy-making bodies, private companies, and academic institutions should foster the development of dual-use technologies and thereby accelerate at the same time a nation's process of modernising its military and its economic growth.

It appears that the enormous potential of AI, the private sector's leadership role in technological development and the increasing interest of states in AI have created a new field of tension between national security and free market ideology. China with its vast internal market, a thriving private sector, strong defence agenda, and long-term policy support is in a position to capitalise AI as a strategic tool to acquire supremacy in all major dimensions. 

M Rokonuzzaman Ph.D is an academic and researcher on technology, innovation and policy.

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