The celebrated return to China of its overseas scientists, as evidenced in the recent case of physicist Gao Huajian, is typically cited as a loss to the United States. This report argues a contrarian view that the benefits equation is far more complicated. PRC programs that channel diaspora achievements “back” to China and the inclination of many scientists to work in familiar venues blur the distinction between returning to China and staying in place.

China’s brain-computer interface research has two dimensions. Besides its usual applications in neuropathology, China is extending the benefits of BCI to the general population, aiming at enhanced cognition and a “merger” of natural and artificial intelligence. This report, authored in collaboration with researchers from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London uses bibliometric analysis and expert assessment of technical documents to evaluate China’s BCI, and conclude that the research is on track to achieve its targets.

Demand for talent is one of the core elements of technological competition between the United States and China. In this issue brief, we explore demand signals in China’s domestic AI workforce in two ways: geographically and within the defense and surveillance sectors. Our exploration of job postings from Spring 2021 finds that more than three-quarters of all AI job postings are concentrated in just three regions: the Yangtze River Delta region, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.

How can policymakers credibly reveal and assess intentions in the field of artificial intelligence? Policymakers can send credible signals of their intent by making pledges or committing to undertaking certain actions for which they will pay a price—political, reputational, or monetary—if they back down or fail to make good on their initial promise or threat. Talk is cheap, but inadvertent escalation is costly to all sides.

Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States emphasize principles of accountability, explainability, fairness, privacy, security, and transparency in their high-level AI policy documents. But while the words are the same, these countries define each of these principles in slightly different ways that could have large impacts on interoperability and the formulation of international norms. This creates, what we call the “Inigo Montoya problem” in trustworthy AI, inspired by "The Princess Bride" movie quote: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

This report summarizes more than 20 CSET reports, translations, and data analyses to provide insight into the steps China has taken to increase its technological competitiveness beyond its own borders.

This report summarizes more than 20 CSET reports, translations, and data analyses to provide insight into China’s internal actions to advance and implement its technology-related policy goals

An expert assessment of Chinese scientific literature validates China's public claim to be working toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). At a time when other nations are contemplating safeguards on AI research, China’s push toward AGI challenges emerging global norms, underscoring the need for a serious open-source monitoring program to serve as a foundation for outreach and mitigation.

In late 2020, China established the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, a state-backed institution dedicated to building software that emulates or surpasses human cognition in many or all of its aspects. Open source materials now available provide insight into BIGAI’s goals, scope, organization, methodology, and staffing. The project formalizes a trend evident in Chinese AI development toward broadly capable (general) AI.

China’s government has pushed the country’s technology and financial firms to expand abroad, and Southeast Asia’s growing economies — and AI companies — offer promising opportunities. This report examines the scope and nature of Chinese investment in the region. It finds that China currently plays a limited role in Southeast Asia’s emerging AI markets outside of Singapore and that Chinese investment activity still trails behind that of the United States. Nevertheless, Chinese tech companies, with support from the Chinese government, have established a broad range of other AI-related linkages with public and commercial actors across Southeast Asia.