Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt stresses ‘urgency’ in countering China on artificial intelligence as US-China tech war continues
- The US is ‘one or two years ahead of China, not five or 10’ and ‘the Chinese are well ahead in areas like face recognition,’ says Schmidt
- Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says he has directed lawmakers to craft measures to strengthen the US tech sector and counter China’s unfair practices
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt called on the US government to fast track development of emerging technology including artificial intelligence (AI) to catch up to China’s lead.
The United States is “one or two years ahead of China, not five or 10” and “the Chinese are well ahead in areas like face recognition,” said Schmidt at a Tuesday hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee on emerging technologies and their impact on national security.
“Because of the diffusion of the technology, you have to expect that anything that’s invented in the open source AI world will immediately be adopted by China,” said Schmidt, who is also the chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, established in 2018 through the John S. McCain National Defence Authorisation Act.
“The threat is very, very real.”
Soon after the hearing, Chuck Schumer, Senate Democratic leader, said he has directed lawmakers to craft a package of measures to strengthen the US tech sector and counter China’s unfair practices.