For the first time, a Chinese company—Huawei—is set to lead the global transition from one key national security infrastructure technology to the next. How did Washington, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, fail to protect U.S. firms in this strategic technology and allow a geopolitical competitor to take a leadership position in a national security relevant critical infrastructure such as telecommunications? This policy brief highlights the characteristics of 5G development that China leveraged, exploited, and supported to take the lead in this key technology. The Huawei case study is in some ways the canary in the coal mine for emerging technologies and an illustration of what can happen to U.S. competitiveness when China’s companies do not have to base decisions on market forces.

AI technologies will likely alter great power competitions in foundational ways, changing both how nations create power and their motives for wielding it against one another. This paper is a first step toward thinking more expansively about AI & national power and seeking pragmatic insights for long-term U.S. competition with authoritarian governments.

China’s National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) resides on a 40 km2 plot in Wuhan. As one indication of its significance, the Chinese Communist Party’s highest-ranking members have an oversight committee for the facility. Over the next decade, the NCC will provide the talent, innovation, and indigenization of cyber capabilities that China’s Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Public Security, and People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force hacking teams lack. Though still under construction, the NCC’s first class of graduates will cross the stage in June 2022.

Using CSET’s new Map of Science to examine clusters of research publications, this data brief presents a comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese research publication outputs. The authors find that global competition outcomes differ depending on the level of granularity when comparing research publication data. In a granular view of global scientific research, the United States and China together dominate almost two-thirds of the research publication output, with the rest of the world leading in more than one-third of publication output. In a general view of global scientific research, only China and the United States appear as leaders in research output.

The global map of research has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years. Annual global investment in research and development has tripled, and the United States’ share of both global R&D funding and total research output is diminishing. The open research system, with its expanding rates of investment and interconnectedness, has delivered tremendous benefits to many nations but also created new challenges for research integrity and security.

“Science and technology diplomats” act as brokers as part of China’s broader strategy to acquire foreign technology. Each year, they file hundreds of official reports on their activities. This issue brief illuminates trends in the 642 reports filed by the S&T directorates of Chinese embassies and consulates from 2015 to 2020, quantifying which types of technologies the Chinese government is most focused on acquiring, and from where.

As part of its strategy to achieve global leadership in AI, the Chinese government brings together local governments, academic institutions, and companies to establish collaboration platforms. This data brief examines the role of China’s Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance in advancing its AI strategy, and the key players in the Chinese AI industry.

Artificial intelligence is said to be transforming the global economy and society in what some dub the “fourth industrial revolution.” This data brief analyzes media representations of AI and the alignments, or misalignments, with job postings that include the AI-related skills needed to make AI a practical reality. This potential distortion is important as the U.S. Congress places an increasing emphasis on AI. If government funds are shifted away from other areas of science and technology, based partly on the representations that leaders and the public are exposed to in the media, it is important to understand how those representations align with real jobs across the country.

U.S. policymakers need to understand the landscape of artificial intelligence talent and investment as AI becomes increasingly important to national and economic security. This knowledge is critical as leaders develop new alliances and work to curb China’s growing influence. As an initial effort, an earlier CSET report, “AI Hubs in the United States,” examined the domestic AI ecosystem by mapping where U.S. AI talent is produced, where it is concentrated, and where AI private equity funding goes. Given the global nature of the AI ecosystem and the importance of international talent flows, this paper looks for the centers of AI talent and investment in regions and countries that are key U.S. partners: Europe and the CANZUK countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom).

New analytic tools are used in this data brief to explore the public artificial intelligence (AI) research portfolio of China’s security forces. The methods contextualize Chinese-language scholarly papers that claim a direct working affiliation with components of the Ministry of Public Security, People's Armed Police Force, and People’s Liberation Army. The authors review potential uses of computer vision, robotics, natural language processing and general AI research.