At a New York City ballroom late last month, a crowd of hi-tech luminaries gathered at an honours ceremony. The biggest draw for the assembled tech geniuses was Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, the superstar head of one of the world’s most valuable companies, set to receive the night’s top award.
In some ways, engineers have been at the centre of every industrial revolution, Huang told the crowd, from steam to electricity to information technology.
But this one, artificial intelligence (AI), will be different, he pronounced with evangelical flair and a veiled warning. “This revolution will be deeply profound, and we have to engage it with enthusiasm and optimism on the one hand, but surely with responsibility at its core.”
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What largely went unspoken at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ceremony that night was the surety that this revolution will play out as a high-stakes race between the United States and China, with those in the room potentially on the losing side.
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Post Techcast: the great AI schism
Post Techcast: the great AI schism
“China is going to win the AI race,” Huang told the Financial Times pointedly on the sidelines of the Future of AI summit in London last year.
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Not everyone agrees, however, with others convinced that China will remain close behind the US but not pass it any time soon.