A series of corporate leaks show that Chinese technology companies function far more like their Western peers than one might imagine. A trove of internal documents leaked from a little-known Chinese company has pulled back the curtain on how digital censorship tools are being marketed and exported globally. Geedge Networks sells what amounts to a commercialized "Great Firewall" to at least four countries, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar. The groundbreaking leak shows in granular detail the capabilities this company has to monitor, intercept, and hack internet traffic. Researchers who examined the files described it as "digital authoritarianism as a service."

A squadron of six Chinese Chengdu J-10 jets took off towards an overcast sky in front of thousands of spectators at an airfield in southern China's coastal city of Zhuhai in mid-November. Flying low in a close V-shaped formation, the jets circled back and as they approached a cluster of buildings near the spectators, trails of red, blue, yellow and white smoke suddenly poured from each plane, bringing a cheer from onlookers that was almost as loud as the roar from the warplanes' engines. Seconds later, the J-10s broke their close formation to show off a series of even more impressive acrobatic manoeuvres. But the aerial show by the seasoned pilots was far from the only demonstration of prowess at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition, better known as Airshow China or the Zhuhai Airshow, which is held biennially and named after the city in southern China where it is held. A wide array of new equipment and aircraft available to the Chinese military – known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) – was unveiled for the first time at the airshow, held from November 12 to 17.

House Armed Services Committee holds hearing on the Department of Defense using AI. The Pentagon is planning to field thousands of artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026 in a bid to keep pace with the Chinese military. The plan, which has been called Replicator, will seek to "galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many," Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said, according to a report by The Associated Press. While the report notes few details, including how the program will be funded and how fast the Pentagon will truly be able to accelerate the development of the new vehicles, the program represents an ongoing shift in how the U.S. views the future of warfare, especially as China continues to forge ahead with AI programs of its own. Phil Siegel, the founder of the Center for Advanced Preparedness and Threat Response Simulation (CAPTRS), believes the rapid push toward AI weapons is similar to that of a nuclear arms race.

Defense companies exploring artificial intelligence will help the U.S. military "keep up" with rivals like China, a former fighter pilot told Fox News. The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act could include a House-authored provision that prohibits the United States government and its contractors from buying equipment from "adversarial biotech companies" that work to "exploit" Americans' genetic information for "malign purposes," Fox News Digital has learned. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are currently conferencing and negotiating on final NDAA text that can be passed by both chambers. The provision, which was passed in the original House bill, was introduced by House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. The provision prohibits the purchase of biotechnology equipment or services from all United States adversaries, including North Korea, Russia, Iran and China.

Defense companies exploring artificial intelligence will help the U.S. military "keep up" with rivals like China, a former fighter pilot told Fox News. American defense startups developing artificial intelligence systems are crucial to helping the U.S. armed forces keep up with rivals like China, a military tech executive told Fox News "There [are] massive amounts of effort going into innovation in China, and we shouldn't be naive to that," said Red 6 CEO Dan Robinson. "Be under no illusion: the threat from China, specifically the [Chinese Communist Party], is real." Weapons equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities are a key focus for the U.S. and Chinese militaries. "What we're understanding as a nation is that a lot of innovation now is coming from nontraditional pathways," Robinson, who was previously an F-22 pilot for the Air Force, continued.

The United States Defense Department (DoD) has added more than a dozen Chinese companies, including the world's largest drone manufacturer, to a blacklist of firms with alleged ties to the Chinese military, clearing the way for restrictions on their business. Shenzhen-based DJI Technology, which is estimated to control more than half of the global market for commercial drones, is among the 13 firms added to the blacklist released by the Pentagon on Wednesday. The blacklist grants the US president authority to impose sanctions against companies deemed to have connections to the Chinese military. The announcement comes after the US Treasury Department last year banned US-based persons from trading shares of DJI and seven other Chinese companies over their alleged involvement in the surveillance of ethnic minority Uighurs in China's far-western region of Xinjiang. BGI Genomics Co, a genetic testing company; CRRC Corp, which manufactures rolling stock; and Zhejiang Dahua Technology, a Hangzhou-based surveillance equipment maker, were also added to the updated list.

Despite measures to limit U.S. technology exports to the Chinese military, chips designed by U.S. companies still end up in the hands of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), according to a report by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown University. For the report, researchers combed through over 66,000 publicly available PLA purchase records during the eight-month period from April to November 2020 and identified 97 unique, high-end artificial intelligence (AI) chips ordered by the PLA. Nearly all of them were designed by U.S. firms Nvidia, Xilinx (now AMD), Intel, and Microsemi. The CSET report, released last month, also noted that the researchers couldn't find any public records of the PLA purchasing the high-end AI chips from any Chinese companies, including HiSilicon (Huawei), Sugon, Sunway, Hygon, and Phytium. These AI chips are critical components to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the "intelligentization" (the addition of artificial intelligence to a system, according to Kaikki.org) of its military and to the regime's goal to gain dominance over the global AI design and manufacturing market.

In March, a largely overlooked, 90-page Government Accountability Office study revealed something interesting: This summer, the Pentagon is getting a new AI Strategy. Between shaping ethical norms for AI and establishing a new Chief Data and AI Officer, it's clear top brass have big plans for the technology, though the report is light on the details. Released in 2018, the last AI Strategy laid the scaffolding for the U.S. military's high-tech competition with China. But over the past four years one thing has become apparent: The United States needs a balanced approach to AI investment -- one that doesn't simply guard against threats, but also imposes costs on a Chinese force that sees AI as the key to victory. Undoubtedly, a military conflict between the United States and China would be catastrophic, and every effort must be taken to avoid such an outcome through diplomatic means.

The U.S. military and China's People's Liberation Army are both pursuing artificial intelligence capabilities which could give them a leg up in future conflicts. PLA investment in AI is now on par with the Pentagon's, experts say. "Supported by a burgeoning AI defense industry, the Chinese military has made extraordinary progress in procuring AI systems for combat and support functions," according to a recent report from the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology. The People's Liberation Army is most focused on procuring AI for intelligence analysis, predictive maintenance, information warfare, and navigation and target recognition in autonomous vehicles, said the study, "Harnessed Lightning: How the Chinese Military is Adopting Artificial Intelligence," by analysts Ryan Fedasiuk, Jennifer Melot and Ben Murphy. Additionally, laboratories affiliated with the Chinese military are actively pursuing AI-based target recognition and fire-control research, which may be used in lethal autonomous weapon systems, according to the authors.

A visiting researcher at UCLA has been arrested and charged with destroying evidence, the latest Chinese national to face accusations in U.S. courts of trying to conceal ties to China's military or government institutions. The FBI began investigating Guan Lei in July, suspecting he had committed visa fraud and possibly transferred "sensitive software or technical data" from UCLA, where he studied machine-learning algorithms in the school's mathematics department, to "high-ranking" officials in the Chinese military, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit. Guan, 29, isn't charged with those crimes. Instead he's accused of destroying evidence after agents, staking out his apartment in Irvine, saw him pull a computer hard drive from his sock and throw it into a trash bin, Agent Timothy D. Hurt wrote in the affidavit. Guan discarded the damaged drive days after being interviewed by investigators and attempting to board a flight back to China, Hurt wrote.