When AI Rules The World - China, The U.S., and The Race To Control A Smart Planet, by Handel Jones, Bombardier Books 2022

While the US staggers from election to election, China's long-term perspective on strategic objectives like AI is frightening.  The numbers tell the story, although certain indelible images reflecting US technology growth and space dominance persist -Sputnik 1 and 2, followed by Apollo, the Challenger, drones, integrated web development.  Now, however, the numbers tell a new, different story, one that, according to author Handel Jones, requires our leaders' immediate attention.  Because, says Jones, we are not winning this race, although we are making headway and of course thriving on continued innovation.  

China has an advantage from its powerful ability to draw on its private sector, its state-owned industries, universities and its relations with other world tech centers.  Author Jones recommends that we look carefully at which areas China has a clear shot at advancing, and adapt our plan, as we did with the Russian Space Race, to protect our own interests. 

What America needs now is the kind of leadership that brought success in the space race in the past where funding support from the federal government allowed corporations to make investments for global leadership.  A similar kind of approach is needed for artificial intelligence in many areas.  Handel Jones 

All the US's technology challenges cost money, even when conducted by entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Bill Gates.  Although the US leads China in government spending on R & D - over $700B - the growth curve for China's R & D spending is quickly moving upward to parallel the US'.  Witness China's  production of industrial robots, for instance; from 2016 to 2021 the numbers have increased 5X, while new applications continue to grow.  An area in which China seemed to lag one or two generations behind US robotic progress 15 years ago, has moved quickly to equal our expertise and applicability, although not surprisingly, many US manufacturing leaders still show hesitation in going full-bore automation and AI.  

In 2017, according to Jones, the Chinese State Council revealed a strategic plan by which China would become the world leader in AI by 2030, a scant 8 years from now.  The term AI (artificial intelligence) is a broad umbrella term that not only includes military apps such as drones and autonomous naval and airborne vehicles, but other more personal areas that we are just starting to feel coming on now - medicine, robotic healthcare and case management, broad bandwidth entertainment and connectivity.  Its a long list, one that Morley and I covered in our 1999 book The Technology Machine.  In the US manufacturing sector, while some manufacturing plants struggle or simply avoid the challenge of selecting and integrating the right AI systems, China has accelerated its 5G network capabilities to build ten million 5G base stations by 2025.  What the US struggles to adopt en masse - facial recognition, for instance - author Jones cites as one example of China's opportunistic approach to jumping ahead.

If you are a manufacturing leader in the US, the pressure from China is already there, and the answers to building on the US' prolific innovation history are encouraging - but not enough, says Jones, when faced with a monolithic AI center like China.  We'd like to think that our combined government and private enterprise strength will map out a good plan for US manufacturing covering not just the next 20 years, but one that takes us ahead at least another hundred.  Its what Morley and I felt we needed twenty years ago and we're waiting, still waiting....

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com