Three days after the Trump administration published its much-anticipated AI action plan, the Chinese government put out its own AI policy blueprint. Was the timing a coincidence? China's "Global AI Governance Action Plan" was released on July 26, the first day of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), the largest annual AI event in China. Geoffrey Hinton and Eric Schmidt were among the many Western tech industry figures who attended the festivities in Shanghai. Our WIRED colleague Will Knight was also on the scene.

Through decades of support, Microsoft was an instrumental force helping China become the AI powerhouse it is today. Now, as the very thought of a U.S. company partnering in tech projects in China draws scrutiny from lawmakers, national security hawks, and human rights advocates, Microsoft could be forced to grapple with tough decisions surrounding the thriving AI ecosystem it fostered there. Microsoft established its research lab in Beijing in 1998, when it was a pioneer paving the way for AI research and business collaborations between the U.S. and China. It was three years before China joined the World Trade Organization, a time when President Bill Clinton actively pushed for closer trade ties with the country, and when AI was mostly the stuff of sci-fi pipe dreams. Since then, Microsoft Research Asia, or MSRA, has been known as one of the most influential hubs of AI research in the world, advancing speech recognition, natural language and image processing, and other deep-learning work, spreading its discoveries far and wide. Elements of research conducted at MSR China have been used to build Microsoft's advertising, chatbots, Bing search, Windows, Xbox, Azure Cloud, and other products used everywhere.

The US Commerce Department added them to a trade blacklist this week, saying the companies had been implicated in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. Twenty government and security bureaus in China's Xinjiang region were also included in the ban. Chinese authorities dismissed the human rights allegations, and threatened retaliation against US companies. "The US accusations against China are groundless and senseless. They only expose the evil motives of the United States to interfere with counterterrorism efforts in Xinjiang and thwart China's development," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Tuesday, telling reporters to "stay tuned" for retaliation.

SHANGHAI – China's ambitious drive to dominate next-generation 5G technology faces a sudden reality check as fears spread that telecom companies like Huawei could be proxies for Beijing's intrusive security apparatus. Fifth-generation mobile communications are the next milestone in the digital revolution, bringing near-instantaneous connectivity and vast data capacity. They will enable the widespread adoption of futuristic technologies such as artificial intelligence and automated cars and factories -- advances China is desperate to lead. With 5G's rollout expected to gain pace in coming years, the race to dominate standards and control security and data traffic underpins much of the current high-tech rivalry between the United States and China, technology experts said. Huawei's status as a leading world supplier of the backbone equipment for telecoms systems -- mostly in developing markets -- gives China an inside track. But analysts say mounting concern over Huawei imperils that lead.

A visitor shakes an AI-powered robot's hand at the 5th China Beijing International Fair for Trade in Services on May 28. Artificial intelligence or AI is presenting more and more opportunities to compete and collaborate in cross-border environments, and China is likely to emerge as one of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend, said experts and industrial professionals. Denis Simon, executive vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, said the State Council has provided guidance for the development of the AI technology in its longterm plan released in July 2017. It also gave the green signal to the private sector, including small and medium enterprises, to enter the AI sector. "As long as market forces determine which company will be successful, the China market has a great potential for developing a very strong AI capability," said Simon.

Pilot Matt Standridge will compete in the Cybathlon using an exoskeleton from the University of Houston's Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems Laboratory designed to help people with paraplegia to walk. Vance Bergeron was once an amateur cyclist who rode 7,000 kilometres per year -- much of it on steep climbs in the Alps. But in February 2013, as the 50-year-old chemical engineer was biking to work at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyons, France, he was hit by a car. The impact sent him flying through the air and onto his head, breaking his neck. When he woke, he learnt that he would never again move his legs on his own, and would have only limited use of his arms.

Mark Muhn is used to watching from his wheelchair as his kids win trophies for their achievements on the sports field. He's been in that wheelchair since 2008, when a skiing accident crushed his spine and left him paralyzed from the chest down. Last Saturday, though, Mark was the one on the podium with a gold medal draped around his neck. "I've watched my kids win, but this time they got to watch me," he says. Muhn won gold at the Cybathlon, the world's first cyborg Olympics, which took place this weekend in a sold-out stadium in Zurich, Switzerland.