China is one of the world's most powerful powers today, with huge investments in civil and military development, it is excelling in advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). But with the microchip crisis and the west's record of rapid success in AI research and applications, the country has started to leverage its economic and scientific efforts to reach this technology market.
And in just a few years, it took second place in the country that invests the most in research and development (R&D) of AIs and demonstrates that it has managed to reach worldwide attention in this race for the podium.
Build innovation bridges
Before the entry of Deng Xiaoping as the country's leader in 1978, China lived in a gigantic scientific backwardness due to the sociocultural values established by previous governments and the economic embargoes of the United States (USA) during the Cold War.
The reforms brought by Xiaoping open up the Chinese market, insert cultural values that prioritize education and increase the focus on investments in R&D, causing China to enter into a rapid technological and scientific growth.
The country started its first developments in AI in the 2010s, focused on the private market with systems linked to the internet of things, big data, cloud computing and other information technologies.
This encouraged researchers and investors in the world market in the area, which led the country to start government applications, insert technology in the production, maintenance and improvement of the country's physical and social infrastructure. However, China's advances were never well seen by the international community, even more so by those who declare themselves to be the main rivals of this power.
The US has been advancing against the country since its revolution in 1949, where it strategically implemented various economic and industrial sanctions to curb China's technological and scientific advances. Which would spare no efforts to get around this situation and guarantee a place on the podium of a race that was just beginning.
a chaotic race
An advanced AI is a technology that requires very high computational resources, even more so when it comes to logical market applications and the field of public administration in one of the largest countries in the world. This requires a large and diverse chain of production and development specialized in the field, which delivers quality professionals, software and hardware.
It was then that, in the mid-2010s, China began industrial investments focused on this demand, losing part of its dependence on imports from other countries.
The initiative for new investments would prove essential in the following years, due to new economic sanctions established by the US, motivated by a scandal of espionage and industrial theft that involved a Chinese citizen linked to the technology branch.
In 2017, China's State Council published the "Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan", which aims to make China the leading country in AI technology by 2030.
The plan has three main objectives: the first is to accelerate research in the area with high public/private investments and promote technological innovation programs; the second is to integrate AI into various sectors of the Chinese economy, including healthcare, transportation, manufacturing and the military; and the third envisions a focus on civil awareness and understanding of the area.
The Chinese government is one of the governments that invest the most in R&D and the application of AIs in the daily lives of its population. It already monitors students' learning and concentration, participates in the production and transportation of the basic industry, coordinates the robot workers in the consumer industry, assists in the storage of hundreds of terabytes of citizens' data and operates in several fields of the robust Liberation Army Popular.
But it's not just the government that is at the forefront of development in the area, companies like Alibaba, Baidu and iFlytek are the biggest companies in the field operating in the country. Baidu stood out at the beginning of the year with the announcement of its natural language processing framework, Ernie Bot, which does not yet have a release date and has no indication of being a direct competitor to ChatGPT.
In 2018, China overtook the US in three places, as the largest holder of AI patents, the largest scientific output and the largest number of academic citations in the world, in addition to being second in the number of experts and companies focused on the field. .
However, such achievements attract the attention of those who lose with them, which generates even greater tensions when it comes to the clash between the two greatest powers on the planet.
The US government has shown strong concern about China's rapid advance in the AI race, even more so with the military and pharmaceutical applications that emerged from the 2017 plan, which helped to tense other ongoing conflicts between the two hegemonies.
unfinished conflicts
The production of TSMC's advanced microchips is always brought up as one of the main topics of debate on the China-Taiwan conflict. Such microchips are key pieces for the development of very high capacity AIs.
Tension increased with the entry of the US to offer diplomatic support to Taiwan, where together they initiated extensive technology trade restrictions to China; they increased export taxes, limited the various accesses to microchip patents and even prohibited certain companies from sharing any scientific knowledge with the country.
As much as China has gained great industrial independence in the area, it still made occasional imports for its production, which was quite difficult with the numerous restrictions.
In addition to geopolitical complications, China is known to be one of the countries with the highest level of civilian surveillance in the world. And with the application of AIs in this field, the government's capabilities to store its citizens' data is enormous; facial, voice, consumer and even social behavior recognition are collected for governmental purposes.
The use of AI in an autocratic way can cause harm or curtail the rights of a society, thus creating an irrational aversion to an extraordinary tool. In addition to the risks to freedom of expression and democracy, which would reduce the population's trust in the government and companies that use this technology.
Such misuses of AI are not just limited to China. The US has already been in the spotlight for the high degree of surveillance and misuse of information from its citizens. In addition to the many tragic cases of US air strikes carried out by drones, which killed hundreds of civilians in more than five countries in the East.
A technology with noble purposes, when used by malicious entities, loses its original meaning along with the victims of these bad intentions.
Reflections
There is no denying the great progress that China has made in the fields of AI R&D, it knows how to invest, plan and apply its discoveries in civilian areas and continues to transform the country's basic and consumer industry.
And as a world power, it has not limited its efforts in expanding the automation of its military corps, it has created one of the most artificially intelligent military forces in the world. It has an advanced military integration logistics system, which connects the country's five military arms: land, air, marine, ballistic missile forces and the strategic support force.
