China Is Not Ahead Of US On AI: JAIC Chief & Gen. Hyten

WASHINGTON: China may lead the world in some aspects of artificial intelligence, such as surveillance and censorship. But in the ways that matter most for future warfare, "the US is still ahead compared to China [in terms of] sophistication and breadth," says the acting director of the Pentagon's Joint AI Center. "The question becomes, how can we quickly adopt this and bring this into the DoD?" Nand Mulchandani asked. It's not the US Department of Defense that's leading the world on AI – although there are definitely some clever coders in the DoD – but American companies, which have invested massively in cutting-edge techniques driven by such mundane missions as targeting online advertising. "[We're] absorbing and wielding it, as opposed to building it from scratch," he said, and that's a big advantage.