AI, Great Power Competition
& National Security
Eric Schmidt
Breakthroughs in AI are accelerating global commercial competition and trans-
forming the international security environment. The reach and influence of foreign-
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based network platforms present risks to American society and require us to con-
front questions about their origin and purpose. Meanwhile, AI technologies are en-
hancing several existing national security threats, and will change the way states
try to gain leverage against adversaries and exercise coercion and influence in other
societies. The open nature of free and democratic societies, combined with their in-
creasing reliance on poorly secured digital networks, makes them especially vulnera-
ble. In the military realm, AI holds the prospect of augmenting cyber, conventional,
and nuclear capabilities in ways that make security relationships among rivals more
challenging to predict and maintain, and conflicts more difficult to limit. Even as
they compete, rivals should explore limits on AI capabilities. The AI ecosystems of
the principal global competitors, the United States and China, remain intertwined,
and a calibration of the bilateral technology relationship requires both selective de-
coupling and continued collaboration in areas of mutual interest. These changes
require a comprehensive national strategy for the next decade that preserves global
leadership advantages for America’s economy and security.
T
he second decade of the twenty-first century featured two major develop-
ments that, together, are shaping the third decade we have now entered.
The geopolitical landscape is marked by intensifying competition be-
tween the United States and its major power rivals, China and Russia. At the same
time, the scientific landscape is characterized by significant advances in artificial
intelligence, which promise tremendous economic and strategic advantages for
those who capitalize on them.
The confluence of these trends has set up an intense commercial competition
among the world’s leading technology companies, most of which are based either
in the United States or in China. AI is transforming almost every sector of national
economies and is accelerating globalized competitions among digital platforms
and services. As a consequence, the stakes for future prosperity and long-term na-
tional competitiveness are immense.
© 2022 by Eric Schmidt
288 Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license
https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_01916
Eric Schmidt
The security environment is also undergoing significant transformations. This
is true across a broad spectrum of national and international security problems,
extending from lower- to higher-level intensities of conflict. At the low end, AI
is exacerbating cyber and disinformation threats and is changing the way states
exercise targeted coercion against opponents. In the middle of the spectrum, war-
fare between conventional armed forces will feature more rapid actions and del-
egated decision-making that could make conflict harder to control. At the high
end, AI-enabled military and intelligence capabilities may disrupt the fundamen-
tal premises of nuclear deterrence in ways that undermine strategic stability.
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All of this requires a comprehensive national strategy for the next decade that
preserves global leadership advantages for both America’s economy and securi-
ty. The United States must protect against hacking, coercion, and other efforts by
adversaries to use our society’s openness against us. The most dangerous aspects
of the U.S.-Chinese and U.S.-Russian military rivalries must be managed to avoid
disastrous conflicts. And the innovation economy that has put American technol-
ogy and ingenuity at the forefront of scientific advances for decades must be bol-
stered to stay ahead of America’s principal competitor, China.
U
nderstanding how AI drives the new global commercial landscape be-
gins with network platforms, which I describe in a recently published book,
The Age of AI, coauthored with Henry Kissinger and computer scientist
Daniel Huttenlocher, as digital services that provide value to their users by aggre-
gating them in large numbers, often at a transnational and global scale.1 Today,
the major network platforms increasingly rely on AI for growth. A network plat-
form’s value and attractiveness grow as additional users adopt it. The potential
social, economic, political, and geopolitical influence of each major network plat-
form is substantially augmented by the degree of these positive network effects.
Two features of global network platforms are especially significant to geopol-
itics. First is their tendency toward consolidation. As more users are drawn to
certain platforms, their network advantages reduce competition, leaving us with
fewer providers of a given service, each with a large base of users. In other words,
the dynamics of positive network effects tend to support only a handful of major
players who are operating at the forefront for their product or service. The small
number of leading platforms thereby gain and exercise significant influence on a
global scale.
The second feature is that many nations are, and are likely to remain, reliant
on network platforms that are both designed and hosted in other countries. As a
result, they are dependent, at least in part, on other countries’ regulators for con-
tinued access, key inputs, and international updates. In the United States and else-
where, this has created concerns about the implications of conducting broad as-
pects of national economic and social life on network platforms that were built
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AI, Great Power Competition & National Security
in other, potentially rival, countries. These platforms may foster a close level of
connection and influence, particularly with the use of AI to learn from and steer a
country’s citizens.
Taken together, these two features point to a growing geopolitical and national
security concern for the United States. The globally dominant network platforms
of the future could be based in rival countries and could exert significant influ-
ence over American society and even critical infrastructure. If a network platform
is useful and successful, it comes to support broader commercial and industrial
functions and, in this capacity, may become nationally indispensable. At least the-
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oretically, the threatened withdrawal of such a network platform serves as a po-
tential instrument of leverage. This hypothetical ability to “weaponize” network
platforms by withholding service in a crisis is an increasingly significant factor in
national security planning.
The reach and influence of global network platforms require us to ask essential
questions about their origin and purpose: By whose design, and with what regu-
latory parameters, is the AI operating? What impact might these processes have
on social norms and institutions? Who has access to the information generated
through the platform?
Looking across the world, a multidisciplinary contest for economic advan-
tage, digital security, technological primacy, and ethical and social objectives is
unfolding.
The United States has begun to view network platforms as an aspect of interna-
tional strategy, restricting the domestic activities of some foreign platforms and
restricting the export of some software and technology that could strengthen for-
eign competitors. At the same time, critics in and out of government have identi-
fied major domestic network platforms as targets for antitrust actions. This simul-
taneous drive for strategic preeminence and domestic multiplicity may push U.S.
development in opposing directions.
Meanwhile, China has similarly supported the development of formidable
network platforms that are global in scale and poised to expand their reach. Bei-
jing has also taken steps to shape international technology standards and bar the
export of sensitive, domestically developed technologies. Chinese network plat-
forms predominate in China and nearby regions, and some are leading global
markets.
The landscape will also be shaped by actors beyond the United States and Chi-
na. Europe, unlike China and the United States, has yet to create homegrown glob-
al network platforms or cultivate the technology industry that has supported the
development of network platforms elsewhere. To be sure, Europe has a signifi-
cant place in the global AI landscape with some leading companies and universi-
ties, sizable markets, and a formidable regulatory apparatus. Yet Europe continues
to face disadvantages for the initial scaling of new network platforms due to the
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Eric Schmidt
many languages and separate national regulatory systems in Europe’s combined
market.
The European Union has focused recent regulatory attention on obliging
changes in American and (to some extent) Chinese network platforms’ conduct
as a condition of their operation in the European market. Europe faces the choice
of whether to act as an ally to one side or another in each technological sphere or
to act as a balancer between sides. Here, the preferences of the traditional, core EU
states and the newer Central and Eastern European entrants may differ, reflecting
varying geopolitical and economic experiences. Thus far, historic global powers
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like France and Germany have prized independence and freedom to maneuver in
their technology policy, whereas more peripheral European states with recent and
direct experience of foreign threats (such as the post-Soviet states) have shown
greater readiness to identify with a U.S.-led technology sphere.
While still an emerging force in this arena, India has substantial intellectual
capital, a relatively innovation-friendly business and academic environment, and
a vast reserve of technology and engineering talent that could support the creation
of leading network platforms. India’s population and economy are of a scale that
could potentially sustain independent network platforms, without recourse to
other markets. Likewise, Indian-designed network platforms have the potential
to become popular in other markets as well. As India assesses its regional relation-
ships and relative reliance on imported technology, it may elect either to chart a
more independent path or to assume a principal role within an international bloc
of technologically compatible nations.
The Global AI Index, the most comprehensive effort to date to rank countries
in terms of AI advancement, offers several insights into how the global competi-
tors stack up.2 The creators of the index assessed countries based on 143 indicators
across areas such as the talent of AI researchers and practitioners, infrastructure,
R&D, government strategy, and commercial activity. This is, of course, a snapshot
in time. What emerges, though, is the centrality of AI talent indicators to assess
both current strength and future trends. Consider, for example:
• The United States leads China by the widest margin in the talent category
(scoring five times higher). It also holds significant leads in research and in
commercial AI. These factors seem naturally related: the best talent is pro-
ducing the best research and driving the best commercial products. All of this
points to the importance of keeping America’s global edge in attracting and
retaining top AI talent.
• Several Western allies also score higher than China in AI talent, including the
United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. This raises
questions about the extent to which European states will be able to capitalize
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on this excellent talent base after Brexit and in the midst of the EU’s evolving
regulatory approach to AI.
• Although India’s overall score is much lower than China’s, its talent score is
substantially higher. India ranks second in the world in AI talent, behind only
the United States. This suggests tremendous potential for India to emerge as
a global AI heavyweight over time, if India can improve its position in other
areas such as national infrastructure, government strategy, and commercial
application.
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In overall scores, the United States and China are in a league of their own at
number one and two, respectively. But the next tier (about ten countries whose
overall scores fall in the same ballpark) is made up entirely of U.S. allies and part-
ners. This points to the critical need to develop and strengthen AI partnerships
with those nations.
Depending on how the commercial competition unfolds–even with, or per-
haps as an effect of, such global partnerships–an industry founded on the prem-
ise of global community and communication may, in time, be enlisted in a pro-
cess of regionalization. Such a process could unite blocs of users in separate re-
alities, influenced by distinctive AI that has evolved in different directions and is
shaped by spheres of regional technology standards. While these trends play out,
some of these AI-driven platforms will be at the center of novel national security
challenges.
A
rtificial intelligence technologies are enhancing several existing national
security threats and will change the way states try to gain leverage against
adversaries and exercise coercion and influence in other societies. The
open nature of free and democratic societies, combined with their increasing re-
liance on poorly secured digital networks, makes them especially vulnerable to
these threats.
In its 2021 final report, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelli-
gence, an independent government panel that I chaired, found that the machine
learning algorithms that transformed how business was done in the early years of
this century are now transforming intelligence and statecraft.3 Technology and
advertising companies learned the value of AI for harvesting and analyzing con-
sumer data. Similar capabilities wielded by governments can now be used for es-
pionage, targeted coercion, tailored disinformation, sophisticated cyber intru-
sions, and potentially biological warfare.
AI opens new horizons of capabilities in the information space, both in mon-
itoring and in disinformation and disruption. In theory, at least, AI could be used
to determine the most effective ways of delivering synthetic content to people,
tailoring it to their biases and expectations. Both “offense” and “defense”–both
292 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Eric Schmidt
the spread of disinformation and efforts to combat it–will become increasingly
automated and entrusted to AI.
These capabilities could be used across the spectrum of conflict: as tools of
pressure during peacetime, as a prelude to military actions, or in concert with a
military campaign.
One implication of these changes is that data security has become a more cen-
tral problem of national security. AI makes it harder to protect personal infor-
mation–finances, patterns of daily life, relationships, and health among other
things–that adversaries could use to develop individually tailored models for in-
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fluence. This is the major counterintelligence challenge for the AI era.
Another, related security concern is that the cyber domain is becoming in-
creasingly complex and automated. Once AI-enabled malware is lodged onto a
computer system, it will be able to mutate into multiple forms to avoid detection
and countermeasures. Such mutating polymorphic malware already accounts for
the vast majority of malicious executable files circulating in cyberspace.
The U.S. government’s tools to manage these threats are clearly inadequate.
Substantial changes are required in the way we think about data security and in
our policies and laws to strengthen it. We need to identify categories and combi-
nations of our most sensitive personal and commercial data, and develop a broad
approach with clear policies, criteria, or authorities to confront this multifaceted
problem. Likewise, major reforms are needed in cybersecurity, including wide-
spread integration of AI-enabled cyber defenses to match and neutralize offensive
AI-cyber techniques.
T
he AI era risks complicating the riddles of modern strategy beyond human
intention, or perhaps even human comprehension. AI holds the prospect
of augmenting cyber, conventional, and nuclear capabilities in ways that
make security relationships among rivals more challenging to predict and main-
tain, and conflicts more difficult to limit.
AI’s capacity for autonomy and logic generates a layer of incalculability. Most
traditional military strategies and tactics are based on the assumption of a human
adversary whose conduct and decision-making calculus fit within a recognizable
framework or have been defined by experience and conventional wisdom. Yet an
AI system piloting an aircraft or scanning for targets follows its own logic, which
may be inscrutable to an adversary and unsusceptible to traditional signals or feints
and which will, in most cases, proceed faster than the speed of human thought.
Moreover, because AIs are dynamic and emergent, even those powers creat-
ing or wielding an AI-designed or AI-operated weapon may not know exactly how
powerful it is, or what it will do in a given situation. When actors deploy AI weap-
ons against one another, neither side may have a precise understanding of what
their interaction will generate or what may be its collateral effects.
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The integration of AI into military and intelligence systems heightens the risk
of instability and conflict between the United States and its rivals across a spec-
trum of scenarios, from activities beneath the threshold of war, to conventional
warfare between armed forces, to nuclear escalation.
At the lower end, for example, it is not hard to imagine how AI-enabled capa-
bilities could provide China with more effective tools to patrol the South China
Sea and consolidate its strategic position there. Nor is it hard to imagine Russian
cyber and disinformation activities in Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe becoming
more effective, persistent, and influential with AI.4
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Once they are released into the wild, AI-enabled cyber weapons may be able
to adapt and learn and may go well beyond their intended targets. The very ca-
pabilities of the weapon might change as the AI reacts to its surroundings. The
multibillion-dollar global damage caused by Russia’s 2017 NotPetya attack
concretely demonstrates the power of even basic automated malware, the risk
tolerance of capable state actors, and the consequences of such capabilities
proliferating.
AI-enabled cyber weapons may allow adversaries to launch digital assaults
with exceptional speed, dramatically accelerating the human capacity to exploit
digital vulnerabilities. As such, a state may effectively have no time to evaluate
the signs of an incoming attack. Instead, they may need to respond immediately
or risk disablement. If they have the means, they may elect to “respond” nearly
simultaneously, before the event can occur, constructing an AI-enabled system to
scan for attacks and empowering it to counterattack. This could lead to new forms
of automated preemption or anticipatory self-defense and strain the legal and pol-
icy frameworks that guide government decision-making.
In conventional warfare, greater reliance on automated capabilities, combined
with the intense decision-making time pressures that attend operations conduct-
ed at machine speeds, could lead to rapid and even unintended escalation. This
is all the more worrisome if militaries rush to field new systems that are unreli-
able in practice and poorly understood by operators. Unintended escalation could
occur for many reasons–including when systems fail to perform as intended be-
cause of interactions between opposing systems on the battlefield, or as the re-
sult of machines or humans misperceiving signals or actions. As AI-enabled sys-
tems increase the pace of warfare across the board, the time and space available
for de-escalatory measures will shrink.
There are also reasons to believe AI will erode nuclear stability, although some
of these concerns are largely theoretical for now. For example, if AI-enabled intel-
ligence and targeting systems are better able to locate nuclear forces that are cur-
rently hard to see and strike (because they are under the sea or moving around on
land), this would put at greater risk a state’s second-strike capability and thereby
undermine mutual vulnerability, which is considered to be a source of stable nu-
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Eric Schmidt
clear deterrence. Other concerns relate to potential integration of AI into nuclear
command and control.
I
n the military sphere, realism should compel rivals, even as they compete,
to explore limits on the development and use of certain destructive, desta-
bilizing, or unpredictable AI capabilities. This could include a sober effort at
some form of AI arms control or, if that is too ambitious, the development of con-
fidence-building measures between rival states to reduce risks to international
stability.5
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If weapons can change in ways that prove different in scope or kind from what
their creators anticipated or threatened, calculations of deterrence or escalation
have the potential to turn illusory. Moreover, from a technical standpoint, the
lines between engaging AI in reconnaissance, targeting, and lethal autonomous
action may be relatively easily crossed, making a search for mutual restraint and
verification systems difficult but imperative.
To be meaningful, restraints must be reciprocal. But the management of mutu-
al restraints on military AI systems will be even more difficult than it has been for
nuclear weapons, which has been the endeavor of more than a half century of di-
plomacy among rivals and remains incomplete and fragmentary. The challenge of
assessing the nuclear balance is relatively straightforward. Warheads themselves
can be counted and their yields known. Conversely, the capabilities of AI are not
fixed, they are dynamic. Unlike nuclear weapons, AI systems are hard to track:
once trained, they can be copied easily and run on relatively small machines. And
detecting their presence or verifying their absence is difficult or impossible with
present technology. This is an important area for further technical research and
policy development.
To begin approaching these questions through diplomacy, initial U.S. dialogue
with China or Russia should focus on making sure that both sides know, at least
in general terms, what the other is doing. Such a discussion of AI weapons among
major powers must be endeavored, if only to develop a common vocabulary of
strategic concepts and some sense of each other’s red lines.
Because the incorporation of AI systems in nuclear strategy is still nascent,
now is the window of time for nuclear states to discuss protocols and understand-
ings that could minimize the disruption to nuclear stability. One helpful measure
would be to clearly and publicly affirm existing U.S. policy that only humans can
authorize the employment of nuclear weapons–and then seek similar commit-
ments from other states.
At the same time, the United States and other major powers should make ef-
forts to limit the proliferation of AI-enabled weapons. Once introduced, these
capabilities could spread quickly. Although creating a sophisticated AI requires
substantial computing power, proliferating the AI or running inference generally
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AI, Great Power Competition & National Security
does not. AI will be ubiquitously acquired, mastered, and employed; the imposi-
tion of restraints on weaponizing AI, or even achieving a collective definition of
restraint, will be exceedingly difficult.
S
ecurity risks to the United States will become more acute if China’s re-
searchers, companies, and military and intelligence agencies overtake
their American counterparts in AI proficiency and breakthroughs. At the
same time, an open international research environment encourages mutually
beneficial scientific advances in both countries. Adjusting the degrees to which
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U.S.-China technology relations should be open or closed will remain an evolv-
ing challenge.
Only the United States and China have the resources, commercial might, tal-
ent pool, and innovation ecosystem to lead the world in AI. In some areas of AI
research and application, China is a peer, and in certain applications, China is al-
ready more technically advanced. Within the next decade, China could surpass
the United States as the world’s preeminent AI power.
If China’s firms win the competition for global network platforms, it will not
only disadvantage U.S. companies, it will also create the digital foundation for
a geopolitical challenge to the United States and its allies. Platform domination
abroad allows China to harvest the data of its users and permits China to extend
aspects of its domestic system of control. Wherever China controls the digital in-
frastructure, it will gain greater leverage to conform the world to its goals.
Meanwhile, the research ecosystems in China and the United States are deep-
ly connected through shared research projects, talent circulation, and commer-
cial linkages that include supply chains, markets, and joint research ventures. It
would be counterproductive to sever the technology ties to China that foster basic
research and benefit U.S. companies. But the United States must safeguard the in-
tegrity of open research, prevent the theft of American intellectual property, and
employ targeted tools like export controls and investment screening to protect
technology industries that are critical to national security.
An appropriate calibration of the U.S.-China technology relationship would
include: 1) some purposeful decoupling of specific linkages that introduce unac-
ceptable vulnerabilities, such as in areas with clear security and military appli-
cations; 2) continuing cooperative research that brings significant joint benefit;
3) continuing commercial interchange between technology sectors; 4) greater
collaboration in shared scientific challenge areas; and 5) increased federal gov-
ernment investment in research and development, which will help position the
United States to win network platform competitions.6
Decoupling, through this lens, is not just about disconnecting from China. It is
about revitalizing America’s own productivity in critical areas. At the same time,
the United States must also build up the capacity of its allies and partners. Done
296 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Eric Schmidt
right, purposeful decoupling could spur a commercial renaissance in particular
classes of technologies across Western nations.
B
reakthrough progress by China on several fronts has intensified the
U.S.-China technology competition. The United States must continue to
invest in American innovation to keep from falling behind. There has been
a continuity of purpose across administrations to mount a major national effort in
AI. Keeping the momentum requires the federal government to take a more asser-
tive role than Americans have been accustomed to in recent decades.
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Most technology advances in the United States will be driven by the private
sector and universities. Although publicly funded research has been important for
innovation, the private sector has proved to be America’s great strength. Compa-
nies move faster and more globally than any government could. But large technol-
ogy firms cannot be expected to compete with the resources of China or make the
large, nationwide investments the United States needs to stay ahead in the compe-
tition. A hybrid approach that more tightly aligns government and private sector
efforts is needed to win.
One example of such an approach is the National AI Research Resource
(NAIRR), a recommendation of the AI Commission. Requested by Congress
through the National AI Initiative Act of 2020, this initiative aims to democratize
access to compute environments, data, and testing facilities, providing research-
ers beyond the leading industry players and elite universities with the ability to
pursue cutting-edge AI work. The initiative promises to spur nationwide technol-
ogy advances with benefits for overall national competitiveness.
Another area for constructive government action is in microelectronics. After
decades of leading the microelectronics industry, the United States is now almost
entirely reliant on foreign sources for production of the cutting-edge semiconduc-
tors that power the AI algorithms critical to everything from our defense systems
to our smartphones. The dependency on semiconductor imports, particularly
from Taiwan, creates a strategic vulnerability from adverse foreign government
action, natural disaster, or other events that could disrupt supply chains for elec-
tronics. At the same time, China has made an enormous financial commitment
to forging a world-leading semiconductor industry by 2030, with the goal of min-
imizing or eliminating China’s own dependency on imported microelectronics.
The United States must be committed to a strategy to stay at least two generations
ahead of China in state-of-the-art microelectronics. Doing so requires continued
funding and incentives to maintain multiple sources of cutting-edge microelec-
tronics fabrication in the United States.
In the coming years, economic and security competitions will proceed in par-
allel, with China aiming to achieve global preeminence in AI by 2030 and securi-
ty agencies among all competitors adopting AI for a wide range of applications.
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AI, Great Power Competition & National Security
Trends in global network platforms will not just define the landscape of commer-
cial AI, but will also shape the security environment in novel ways. International
stability will hinge in large measure on whether rival states can manage the un-
certainties of AI in the cyber, conventional, and nuclear realms. And the United
States will need to carefully navigate its interdependencies with China while also
continuing domestic reforms to bolster innovation. How the United States man-
ages these interrelated challenges will go a long way toward determining its com-
petitive position by the end of the decade.
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about the author
Eric Schmidt, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2007, is the former Chief
Executive Officer of Google and former Executive Chairman and Technical Advi-
sor of Alphabet, Inc. He is also a Founder of the Schmidt Foundation, the Schmidt
Ocean Institute, and Schmidt Futures. He is the Chair of the Special Competitive
Studies Project and was the Chairman of the National Security Commission on Ar-
tificial Intelligence from 2019 to 2021. He is the author of The Age of AI: And Our
Human Future (with Henry Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher, 2021), Trillion Dollar
Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell (with Jonathan Rosenberg
and Alan Eagle, 2019), and How Google Works (with Jonathan Rosenberg, 2014). In
2020, he launched the podcast Reimagine.
endnotes
1 This discussion on network platforms and global commercial competition in AI draws in
part from Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of AI: And
Our Human Future (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2021).
2 The Global AI Index, Tortoise Media, https://www.tortoisemedia.com/intelligence/
global-ai/ (accessed January, 2022).
3 National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Final Report (Washington, D.C.:
National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 2021), https://www.nscai
.gov/2021-final-report/.
4 This essay was written before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
5 This discussion of measures to mitigate international stability risks draws in part from
Kissinger et al., The Age of AI.
6 For an elaboration of the argument for calibrating U.S.-China technology relations, and
further explanation of these five features, see Eric Schmidt, “Building a New Tech-
nological Relationship and Rivalry,” in COVID-19 and Global Order, ed. Hal Brands and
Francis Gavin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).
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