TECH RACE WITH CHINA: TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY - The United States has been the world’s technology leader since the end of World War II, and its innovation edge has provided substantial economic, geopolitical, and military advantages for decades. As we enter a contested period of great-power competition, however, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made controlling the commanding heights of 21st-century technology a top priority, and it may already enjoy an edge over the United States and its democratic allies in several key technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and hypersonic missiles. The stakes of this new tech arms race could not be greater, as the nation to emerge victorious could enjoy significant geopolitical advantages for decades to come.

In the forthcoming Atlantic Council Strategy Paper, Global Strategy 2023: Winning the Tech Race with China, Peter Engelke and Emily Weinstein posit that the United States and its allies and partners need a renewed effort to ensure they maintain their technological edge in the 21st century. This will entail continuing to strengthen domestic sources of innovation, while pushing back in a coherent and unified fashion on China’s unfair technology practices. It will also require a clear-eyed assessment of the geopolitical stakes of technological competition with China and an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of US and allied versus Chinese innovation models. To coincide the launch of the report, our speakers and panelists will discuss a strategy, that takes into account allies and partners across both the public and private domain, to win the tech race.