Eric Schmidt’s think tank urges moonshot chase to keep US ahead of China in race for technological supremacy
- Alphabet ex-chairman’s Special Competitive Studies Project lays out a national action plan for the US that calls for a million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2028
- The US needs to guard against the dangers of China’s technological rise and an ‘industrial espionage strategy with global reach’, report warns
The US must pursue strategic technological breakthroughs, such as a working quantum computer by 2028, to stay ahead of rivals like China and ensure its national security.
That is according to a report released on Tuesday by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), an organisation funded by former Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt. The document also urges the improvement of computational energy efficiency by a factor of 1,000 or more and the development of commercial-grade superconductor electronics.
The US and China are in a race for technological supremacy that has seen both pour billions of dollars in investment to expand domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and self-sufficiency. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) promising to transform entire industries and accelerate innovation in microelectronics and computers, Schmidt’s think tank attempts to set out a national action plan for the US.
The country has a history of rallying resources and pushing technology forward when pressed by a foreign adversary, from the Manhattan Project in World War II to the lunar landing, which came about after Soviet Union’s Sputnik launch.
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The SCSP report warned that the US needs to guard against the dangers of China’s technological rise, which is aided by a vast domestic industry, a deep pool of motivated engineers and an “industrial espionage strategy with global reach”.
Now 68, Schmidt has leveraged his US$27 billion fortune to build a powerful influence machine in Washington and has been warning about security risks around China’s development of AI and computing.