Key Takeaways From the Senate Hearing on China's Challenge on AI

And next, let's turn to the AI race between the US and China. What will it take for the US to win and what's at stake even? Joining us to discuss is Rick Deator, CEO and founder of Tower Strategy LLC and a retired CIA senior operations officer. Thanks for joining us this morning, Rick. A Senate committee held a hearing yesterday titled Countering China's Challenge to American Leadership. What was the outcome of that hearing? Well, I think for the first time now, we officially have on the record uh Congress indicating that um the competition with China is has been and currently in its current state is unfair. Uh what we have is we have China stealing intellectual property um abusing um and stealing personal information and uh private data and then weaponizing all that stuff uh with its military. So this isn't about business competition between the United States and China. Um this is actually uh China looking for AI dominance uh both in a military and strategic uh st you know um position. Um, so what what what came out of the Senate hearings uh was really a spotlight and focus that if the US is serious about winning this, then we're going to have to make some significant investments and pay some significant um time and energy uh uh to to to to actually confront and beat China. The United States currently leads when it comes to chip technology uh and when it comes to the software and and and developing these things out. Uh China does lead however sadly in when it comes to energy. We just don't have enough energy in this country uh to generate the amount of wattage that's required uh to to to meet AI demands. This isn't something that we can wait and you know and sit around and and hope that that that we somehow fix and get on the right side within the next uh few years. we really only have possibly one year or or or best a few months to to to you know to get into that position that we need to be in. >> Yeah, Rick, you bring up a lot of interesting angles and points to this complex issue. You talk about going on offense, getting the energy going, but also you talk about defense about preventing um what you've described as sort of this IP theft fusion because that IP theft doesn't it's not for business. It's it's not for the private sector. It's there's a fusion of their military with their private sector. So the Chinese regime as we frequently cover on NTD is engaged in this unconventional warfare as as you described it and as I attempted to describe it. They invested soft power in places such as grassroots organizations in the US. They even do lobbying quite aggressively. So do you see that coming into play specifically as it relates to AI or is it in other sectors of you know military and other things? Yeah, absolutely right. Uh uh the Chinese soft power uh that is executed against the United States and in every sector from university campuses to um uh NOS's and and grassroots movements and even lobbying here in DC. I'm proud to say as a lobbyist uh I accept no money from the the PRC. uh what what what you see is uh they they they muddle the waters uh and and and try to refocus the attention to their benefit. So for example um you know the the push and argument for overregulation of AI technologies and expansion of AI or the overstressing of environmental concerns regarding AI. Um, a lot of those uh efforts are are straight out of the the Chinese playbook uh to, you know, to to to slow us down, you know, to to keep us from from from catching up and making the advancements we certainly uh need to make. at the university campus level. Uh a lot of that technology as we know and the DOJ consistently uh spotlights their arrests uh that we've seen a significant increase of of those who collaborate with the the PRC in stealing uh technologies uh from um the university centers and advanced laboratories. And then you have an all-out offensive on the cyber front when it comes to hacking and breaking into databases into corporate and government databases and and and and stealing that information that then as you said uh goes back into China Chinese servers and then is weaponized uh uh to to you know to to benefit the PRC. You brought up a really interesting point around the lobbying um specifically that they're lobbying for green energies here in the US as they fire up dozens of these coal fired power plants. You said that we are behind them as it relates to the energy required to lead in AI. And you said that it's not a 5-year thing, it's a one-year thing. So what what are the stakes? How does AI help them achieve both their Cold War objectives as well as their kinetic war objectives? Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, if you look at where we're at now, um China currently, just just to put this into perspective, China produces more solar energy than the United States produces nuclear energy. Right? Within the next 5 years, China is slated to produce more solar energy than the entire energy that the United States produces. That's everything we do. Nuclear, solar, diesel, G, whatever it is. So, we're not even uh in the same realm. Uh you're right, they're firing up coal plants left and right. Uh but they're really making their investments in the future in solar technologies, which they control. They control 90% of that market in the United States. That's something that we need to focus on here. uh um uh we need to look at these uh the the component levels uh the polysiliconets the the modules all the things that go into solar energy manufacturing and bring that back uh to the United States and control it like like like we'd be some sort of um very critical industry because it is that from a technical standpoint uh providing large amounts of energy uh to these data centers to the folks involved in AI crypto data centers that are going to require the energy to take us to that next level. We need to focus on that. Right now, sadly, our grid uh is too reliant on Chinese subcomponents um where I have personally no real faith in uh and and also we're just not growing and making those investments to keep up. >> Yeah. And as you mentioned, the the advancements of AI, it seems as though both cold war applications like deep fakes, misinformation, power grids, which you mentioned, all controlled through computer technology. So AI certainly could affect that. But then also as we see with the Russia Ukraine war um as well as with Israel that these kinetic military uh tools are really now being controlled by AI and it's not as much humans on the battlefield. It's it's drones and other technology. So a lot here at stake. Really appreciate all your analysis. Energy seems like one of the key ingredients for leadership. Rick Delator, thank you so much for joining. >> Thanks for having me.