Executive Summary

The overwhelming majority of Chinese artificial intelligence and machine learning, or simply AI, research coauthored by People’s Republic of China (PRC) security force organization affiliates is published in Chinese, not in English. Despite the general decrease in the number of security force papers in all topics, AI research bucks the trend and continues to increase in volume. Computer vision is the most active subfield of AI research, much more so than natural language processing or robotics. The PRC security force organizations discussed in this brief include two police-like forces (the Ministry of Public Security and People’s Armed Police Force) and the various components of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The military components produce the largest share of AI research output by volume and each specializes in mission-relevant AI applications, such as multi-target tracking and targeting, and air/surface/underwater autonomous systems, among others. The policing organizations, likewise, have mission-specific areas of emphasis in facial recognition, gait recognition, forgery detection, fingerprint recognition, and steganography, among others.