Risk profile

China Spotlight

other national standards make it easier for the government to track its citizens. China’s social credit system, an algorithmic reputation system developed by the government, standardizes assessments of citizens’ and businesses’ behavior and activity. In 2020, numerous reports of abuse revealed that China turned its AI on the ethnic Uyghur Muslim community. Huawei developed special AI software to identify Uyghurs and alert local police. In 2021, China blocked social media platform Clubhouse after an open, democratic debate flourished on the platform about the plight of the Uyghur community.

Risk profile

We have failed—and we are continuing to fail—to see China as a military, economic, and diplomatic threat when it comes to AI. China has already used its Belt and Road Initiative as a platform to build international partnerships in both physical and digital infrastructure, and it is making surveillance technologies available to countries with authoritarian regimes. Two Chinese companies—the state-controlled CEIEC and Huawei— built Ecuador’s surveillance system, called ECU-911. The system promised to curb high murder rates and drug crime, but it was too expensive an investment. As a result, a deal was struck for a Chinese-built surveillance system financed with Chinese loans. It was a prelude to a much more lucrative deal: Ecuador eventually signed away big portions of its oil reserves to China to help finance infrastructure projects. Similar package deals have been brokered in Venezuela and Bolivia. China is quietly weaponizing AI, too. China’s People’s Liberation Army is catching up to the U.S. military, using AI for such tasks as spotting hidden images with drones. The Chinese military is

Top-tier AI Researchers Increasingly Hail From China

Country affiliations are based on the country where the researcher received their undergraduate degree.