On December 4, the U.S. Senate issued a death warrant: China must not surpass the U.S. in the AI field!

That day, the "Federal Spending Efficiency, Fiscal Responsibility, and Government Performance" subcommittee under the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a closed-door hearing, with the theme of "how to deal with China's challenge to the U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence."

The meeting was chaired by Pete Ricketts, a Republican senator from Nebraska and the chairman of the subcommittee. In his opening remarks, he openly compared the Sino-U.S. AI competition to the space race of the new Cold War era — only this time, the Soviet Union has been replaced by China, and instead of competing for orbits and the moon, the contest is now for dominance in large models, computing power, and the AI ecosystem.

Ricketts emphasized: "We are at a critical window of opportunity. If we do not take decisive action now, the global AI order over the next decade will be dominated by China." He stated that in the AI field, the U.S. must absolutely not be surpassed by China, otherwise there will be big trouble. However, now the two sides have taken different paths: one focuses on application scenarios, while the other focuses on innovative technology.

China has the most extensive AI application scenarios globally: from the fully automated port in Shenzhen to the AI government approval process in Hangzhou, from the intelligent medical imaging diagnosis in Shanghai to the industrial quality inspection robots in Chengdu, AI has been deeply integrated into the real economy.

In contrast, although U.S. AI companies are strong in basic models, they face slow deployment in industrial scenarios due to the hollowing out of manufacturing and data privacy regulations.

A report from McKinsey in October showed that China's AI penetration rate in manufacturing has reached 34%, while the U.S. is only 19%. This is the fundamental reason for the anxiety of the U.S. Senate.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1850727516363931/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.