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China technology
TechPolicy

China has created tech ‘new world order’ in areas like AI and data collection, says US think tank

  • China will continue to assert ‘prolific dominance’ in multiple areas this year, according to the Future Today Institute’s 2020 Tech Trends Report
  • Despite slowing growth in China’s economy, ‘it would be a mistake’ to assume the country has lost its influence, the report says

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China will continue to assert ‘prolific dominance’ in technology this year, according to the Future Today Institute. Photo: AP
Sarah Dai
China has created a “new world order” in technological areas including the development of critical digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and data collection, according to an American think tank.

“The growth of China’s economy might be slowing, but it would be a mistake to assume that the People’s Republic of China has lost its influence,” said the Future Today Institute in its 2020 Tech Trends Report released on Monday. “China has a rapidly-expanding middle class, an educated and trained workforce and a government that executes on long-term plans.”

The institute projected that China will continue to assert “prolific dominance” this year, as it races against the US and other countries for global leadership in areas such as AI, bioengineering and space exploration.

In the annual tech trends report, which is in its 13th year, Future Today highlighted China’s global leadership in artificial intelligence, aided by its collection of a surplus of data from citizens.

“If data is the new oil, then China is the new OPEC,” the report stated. “The country’s massive population – nearing 1.4 billion people – offers researchers and start-ups there command of what may be the most valuable natural resource in the future – human data – without the privacy and security restrictions common in much of the rest of the world.”

The kind of rich data the Chinese are mining can be used to train AI to detect patterns used in everything from education and manufacturing to retail and military applications, according to the think tank, which is based in Washington, DC.

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