Digital Silk Road: Xi Jinping's pursuit of artificial intelligence
DIGITAL SILK ROAD: Xi JINPING’S PURSUIT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
WRITTEN BY SHIHUI YIN
31 March 2020
With the growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI), China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) has been getting increasing attention since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched in 2013. This trend, in particular, was facilitated by its issue of the ‘New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan’, which was designed to enable China to quickly catch up with the US and become the global AI leader by 2030.
China considers its digital infrastructure in Southeast Asia as a core starting and focal point to export its AI-related technologies, technical standards and to access large pools of data to boost its AI industry. This commentary provides a brief overview of the progress and challenges of DSR in Southeast Asia to advance Xi’s goal of becoming AI global leadership.
China’s A.I. sphere of influence
Spreading Chinese homegrown AI technological norms and standards in Southeast Asia has become the initial main target of the DSR strategy. Wider adoption of AI-augmented technologies enables China to project its global power. Around 10 ASEAN counties have assigned BRI cooperation document with China. Many Chines AI giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan, JD and even tech unicorns Didi Chuxing have invested heavily in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
These AI giants are making a tremendous effort to export China-owned technical standards in the region, and they see this as the unprecedented opportunity that China should seize to play and set the rules for emerging and disruptive technologies for global AI governance, which could be different with the values from the existing US led international order.
The use of AI is still at its early stage in Southeast Asia, the growing industries such as financial services, transport, healthcare, education, retail, and HR have started AI systems with Chinese support. The particular example is AI-augmented fintech ecosystems, Chinese fintech giants have been trying to help ASEAN countries with data management, platform operation, basic model development and even financial support to upgrade their platforms. The flourish of Chinese domestic fintech companies into Southeast Asia can lead to a significant impact on the entire financial ecosystem.
Another core focus of the DSR is accessing to large quantities of datasets and controlling the flow of data. Data is the foundation of artificial intelligence. Although China has a huge advantage in this aspect domestically, the increasing cooperation of its domestic AI giants with Southeast Asian tech companies will largely upgrade China’s data assets to a much stronger level consider total population of 655 million people in the region.
Three Chinese facial recognition start-ups, SenseTime, Megvii, Yitu, have already pushed their surveillance and security technology into Southeast Asia for the use of financial services, transport, business and public security. The centralised identity databases can also be used potentially for dual-use purposes. If the data are collected and managed successfully, the balance of geopolitical power might well be shifted in China’s favour.
Significant challenges ahead
However, realising the potential massive technological, political, economic and security implications, the US and its allies feel the threat that the digital infrastructure and connectivity based on Chinese technical standards will have huge impact on the development of the US led international order in the Asia-Pacific region.
US-Japan cooperation was expanded in the region to offer more attractive and lower-cost alternatives in Southeast Asia to curb China’s technolgical bifurcation and counter China’s growing geopolitical influence there. Also, Samsung Electronics has announced on March 2 to construct the largest industrial 4.0 technology R&D centre in Vietnam with approximately US$220 million, aiming for the development of AI, 5G network and product development.
This will inherently lead to a more competitive market for Chinese AI companies. In 2019, the US ban of China’s most valuable facial recognition startups indicated that the real intention was not about human rights issues but really about competing for technological hegemony.
Since many Southeast Asian countries along the DSR are still at early stages of developing their AI, their dependencies on Chinese AI technologies and support will likely to continue and advance Chinese AI supremacy. However, the determination of the US and its allies to China’s tech power will also lead to more competition and perhaps digital confrontation.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Shihui Yin obtained her Bachelors in International Economics and Trade from Central South University in China in 2011. She also received an MA Degree with Distinction in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy from City, University of London in 2018. She is currently pursuing her PhD in the fields of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Image credit: CC BY-NC 4.0/Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff/Flickr