Today’s crucial breakout period for artificial intelligence has left us with no option but to advance as quickly as possible. Here’s why: The Chinese Communist Party views AI dominance as a geopolitical race for control.
Beijing pulled out all the stops to achieve this goal in five years. America invented AI and holds a lot of advantages. But so does the Chinese regime. It has given wide berth and lots of capital to the tech companies under its control to develop every aspect of AI, as long as those companies advance the CCP’s strategic plans.
Hiding behind its “Great Firewall of China” and social credit system of control, the CCP has spawned an internal AI revolution.
THERE IS NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BUBBLE
It is building what it calls a 100% self-reliant AI industry. It has cornered the market on rare earth elements, the exotic metals crucial to building the chips and other machinery to run AI. Recently, it announced severe restrictions on American companies that depend on those exotic metals.
It has given party-loyal tech companies extraordinary freedom and resources to build on the technological advances they steal from us. It undercuts American companies to flood the international market with high-quality, cheap AI products and services. It even steals the brain-function data of unsuspecting people to train AI for an army of what the People’s Liberation Army calls “supersoldiers” — autonomous humanoid robot combatants and even robotic wolves.
The Chinese regime is far ahead of the United States in manufacturing and deploying autonomous, AI-powered robots and drones, and developing a doctrine to “swarm” its adversaries. We recently saw Ukraine’s brilliant military operation to send armed drones deep into Russian territory in secret compartments on ordinary shipping trucks to destroy a third of Moscow’s long-range military aircraft. And how Israel secretly positioned drones deep inside Iran to liquidate the mullahs’ nuclear commanders and scientists with pinpoint precision.
Imagine the Chinese communists deploying drones from, say, a Missouri RV park outside Whiteman Air Force Base to destroy our B-2 bomber fleet. Or releasing them from a parking lot in northern Virginia to assassinate our political, military, and intelligence chains of command in their homes or on their way to work. This is why we can no longer afford the ponderous reflection, preventive government restraints, and even preclearance regimes and licensure of AI entities — all normal things in normal times to limit the dangers of a technology that can easily get out of control.
Those normal times are gone. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been building a superweapon. Every delay on our end inadvertently helps Xi’s AI advance. Beijing’s AI dominance will put an end to American dominance and sovereignty, and we won’t get it back in our lifetimes. The AI race will affect us more than the nuclear arms race and the space race of the Cold War. AI dominance will affect all of us.
Today’s competition is not a typical race in breadth or pace. Each stage in the relay involves faster and faster technology. Each delay on our side catapults the adversary further forward. Falling behind may mean never catching up. American policymakers have a duty to mitigate the negative consequences of AI development. They also have a duty to prevent the Chinese regime from winning the AI race.
AI IS REDEFINING NATIONAL POWER AND SOVEREIGNTY
President Donald Trump recognized this dilemma. The first acts of his second term included the removal of bureaucratic barriers, red tape, and other shackles on American industry. His foreign travels included major deals with friendly countries to produce rare earth elements and break the CCP monopoly. In July, the White House introduced an across-the-board AI Action Plan to ensure that America remains dominant.
AI is our strategic asset. It is not a mere commercial or technological advancement or product. We can afford no peer competitor in AI, let alone a dominant foe. America must always dominate in AI.
J. Michael Waller is a senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the new report, Code and Country: Securing America’s AI lead before China locks down the future.
