THE UNITED STATES CAN ONLY ACHIEVE AI DOMINANCE WITH ITS ALLIES
For companies like Google and Facebook, the competition to amass data is not between the digital activities of 330 million Americans against the virtual footprint of over one billion Chinese citizens. Instead, their products hold near-monopolies in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia. In contrast, Chinese equivalents like and have only a handful of non-Chinese users. This global reach gives American technology companies an advantage both in the total volume of data they collect and in the diversity of data harvested. Chinese data sets, for now, are still largely blind to conditions outside of China. AI algorithms trained on those data sets would struggle to travel outside its borders.
The success of American technology companies illustrates the most promising path for the U.S. military to pursue at the dawn of its own AI age.
The United States counts most industrialized nations as military allies and equipment manufactured by the United States or its NATO allies is driven and flown around the world. The United States could seek deeper integration and cooperation with its allies who have unique resources to advance specific applications of AI. Many, including the , have called for the United States to leverage its existing “Five Eyes” alliance and extend it to include cooperation in AI. A complementary approach might be to focus on partners who have unique technical assets to contribute. For example, East Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea have invested heavily in robotics and automation, which makes them attractive partners for developing more capable drones and other autonomous vehicles.
For companies like Google and Facebook, the competition to amass data is not between the digital activities of 330 million Americans against the virtual footprint of over one billion Chinese citizens. Instead, their products hold near-monopolies in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia. In contrast, Chinese equivalents like and have only a handful of non-Chinese users. This global reach gives American technology companies an advantage both in the total volume of data they collect and in the diversity of data harvested. Chinese data sets, for now, are still largely blind to conditions outside of China. AI algorithms trained on those data sets would struggle to travel outside its borders.
The success of American technology companies illustrates the most promising path for the U.S. military to pursue at the dawn of its own AI age.
The United States counts most industrialized nations as military allies and equipment manufactured by the United States or its NATO allies is driven and flown around the world. The United States could seek deeper integration and cooperation with its allies who have unique resources to advance specific applications of AI. Many, including the , have called for the United States to leverage its existing “Five Eyes” alliance and extend it to include cooperation in AI. A complementary approach might be to focus on partners who have unique technical assets to contribute. For example, East Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea have invested heavily in robotics and automation, which makes them attractive partners for developing more capable drones and other autonomous vehicles.