Over the last four years at the United Nations, the international community has witnessed an alarming trend of closer collaboration between Russia and China that poses a significant threat to the "rules-based order" the United States helped design back in 1945. This increased and renewed level of cooperation presents an unprecedented dilemma for the United States and like-minded partners: how to maintain the existing order, warts and all, when two permanent members of the UN Security Council are now working feverishly to subvert it. To many UN observers, China and Russia have now come to the shared conclusion that the UN has become a tool Washington and its allies regularly use to destabilize their regimes and diminish their global influence. Consequently, the United Nations has become a critical battleground in the current era of "Great Power" competition. During my two-plus years as the U.S. ambassador responsible for UN Security Council matters, I have seen first-hand at the UN how these two authoritarian powers repeatedly and energetically spread falsehoods alleging: U.S. Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament Robert Wood attends a news conference at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, April 19, 2018.

From artificial intelligence to robotics, China is beating Western democracies in research output on 37 out of 44 technological areas deemed critical for economic growth and military power over the coming decades, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a recently released report. By often producing more than five times as many highly cited research papers as its closest competitor -- typically the United States -- China is not only further ahead in more areas than previously realized but has also built the foundations to position itself as the world's leading science and technology superpower, the Canberra-based think tank revealed. This "sometimes stunning lead" stretches to critical domains, including defense, space, robotics, energy, the environment, advanced materials, AI and key quantum technology areas, according to the report's authors, who tracked and analyzed the most-cited research publications in each of the 44 fields over the past five years. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

GENEVA (Reuters) - China and the United States are ahead of the global competition to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study by the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published on Thursday. The study found U.S. tech giant IBM had by far the biggest AI patent portfolio, with 8,920 patents, ahead of Microsoft with 5,930 and a group of mainly Japanese tech conglomerates. China accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions involved in patenting AI and was particularly strong in the fast growing area of "deep learning" - a machine-learning technique that includes speech recognition systems. "The U.S. and China obviously have stolen a lead. They're out in front in this area, in terms of numbers of applications, and in scientific publications," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry told a news conference.

MegaBots' giant robot duel might just turn into a full-scale brawl. Beijing outfit Greatmetal has unveiled a prototype of Monkey King, China's take on an enormous battle machine. It's still human-piloted, but it has a distinct trick up its sleeve: it can either fight on all fours (good for stability) or stand on its hind legs to wield a staff. While we wouldn't expect wuxia-style acrobatics out of this bot, it could throw a curveball into what was otherwise set to be a relatively straightforward fight. You might not have long to wait to see it in action, either. MegaBots is deciding whether or not Greatmetal can enter its giant fighting robot league, and might even pit its Mk.