A former Google CEO said during a Congressional hearing on Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) is at the "center" of the technology competition between the United States and China. Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, made the comment during Wednesday's House hearing focusing on strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). "I think the technology competition between China and the U.S. is the defining moment of all of the competitions," Schmidt said. "And of that, artificial intelligence, AI, which is now a lot of people are talking about, is very much at the center of this competition." Elaborating on his point, Schmidt said that "China is now dedicating enormous resources to outpace the US and technologies, in particular AI." Former CEO & Chairman of Google and Chainlink Advisor Eric Schmidt speaks at Chainlink's SmartCon 2022 Web3 Conference on September 28, 2022 in New York City.

An AI gold rush is underway in the private sector in the wake of ChatGPT, but the geopolitical stakes are even greater. The United States and China are vying for global leadership in AI, a technology that is transforming political, economic, and military power. The U.S. currently leads in AI, but China is rapidly catching up and has declared its intent to be the global leader by 2030. To stay ahead of China in AI, the U.S. will need to work with China. The best competitive strategy for the U.S. is to sustain ties with China in areas where the U.S. benefits disproportionately, such as human talent and computing hardware, while severing problematic ties.

Artificial intelligence is going to reorganize the world and change the course of human history. With China increasingly using technology to usher in a new form of authoritarianism, the world's democracies must come together and stand up for their own values and strategic interests. The world is only starting to grapple with how profound the artificial-intelligence revolution will be. AI technologies will create waves of progress in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production, and environmental sustainability. Successful adoption of AI will drive economies, reshape societies, and determine which countries set the rules for the coming century.

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) recently published the Final Report for 2021 outlining an integrated national strategy to empower the US in the era of AI-accelerated competition and conflict. NSCAI worked with technologists, national security professionals, business executives and academic leaders to put out the report. According to the report, the US government is a long way from being "AI-ready." Based on the findings, the commission has proposed a set of policy recommendations. The US leads in almost all AI parameters than most countries, including India.

This week the American National Security Commission on artificial intelligence released its final report. Cursory inspection of its 756 pages suggests that it's just another standard product of the military-industrial complex that so worried President Eisenhower at the end of his term of office. On closer examination, however, it turns out to be a set of case notes on a tragic case of what we psychologists call "hegemonic anxiety" – the fear of losing global dominance. The report is the work of 15 bigwigs, led by Dr Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Alphabet (and before that the adult supervisor imposed by venture capitalists on the young co-founders of Google). Of the 15 members of the commission only four are female.

DoD clearly has recognized artificial intelligence (AI) as the next game-changer in military competition, with the Pentagon and the services pouring money into numerous development programs. Indeed, mastering AI and machine learning will be crucial to the new way of war envisioned by Pentagon leadership: Multi-Domain Operations. But the US government may be shooting itself in the foot by overlooking a key problem: a lack of American AI specialists, argues Megan Lamberth co-author of "The American AI Century: A Blueprint for Action," a new report from the Center for New American Security. The United States is engaged in a global technology competition in artificial intelligence. But while the US government has shown commitment to developing AI systems that will positively transform the American economy and national security, the country has neglected its most important resource: talent.