US commission urges government funded ‘AI Manhattan Project’ to beat China in race for AGI

A US congressional commission - the bipartisan US-China Economic and Security Review - has submitted its annual report this week, in which it urges the government to fund a ‘Manhattan Project-like program’ in order to beat China in the race towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The Commission highlights in its report that the US is locked in a long-term strategic competition with China to shape the evolving global technological landscape - but that the two nations are playing by different rules. For instance, General Secretary Xi Jinping, leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has prioritized non-market practices, has disregarded ‘global norms’, and has focused on heavily subsidising industries - such as technology - in order to become the global economic superpower. This is in contrast to the US, which has the same objective, but relies on market dynamics and global co-operation (to a degree) to achieve its goals.

With an incoming President Trump, who ...