No Fear of Falling Behind: US AI Lead Secure, Inflection AI CEO Confirms

According to Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind, China’s tech industry is striving to catch up in the field of artificial intelligence technology. However, Suleyman predicts that the United States will maintain its leading position in this sector even after a decade.

“I’m pretty sure about it. The fundamentals of the U.S. innovation ecosystem are arguably the best in the world,” said Suleyman, whose latest venture is Inflection AI, a $4 billion startup. we are too worried that we will somehow be knocked off our podium.

Suleyman made the remark in an interview for the latest episode of the Bloomberg Originals series AI IRL, which is now streaming.

US officials are particularly concerned about China’s ability to use artificial intelligence for military purposes. In August, the Biden administration imposed restrictions on US investment in Chinese semiconductor, quantum computing and artificial intelligence companies, citing national security concerns. Last month, it announced further measures to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors capable of teaching artificial intelligence algorithms.

Despite U.S. efforts to slow China’s AI development, tech companies and entrepreneurs in the world’s second-largest economy are still racing to get a share of the AI boom. Chinese startup 01.AI, founded by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee, developed a large open-source language model that outperformed some of Silicon Valley’s leading systems on some metrics. Baidu Inc. also recently claimed that its broad language model is as good as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

However, recent advances should not be confused with China’s lead in artificial intelligence, said Helen Toner, director of strategy and fundamental research grants at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies.

“I think it is also very possible to overestimate them. Are they a serious competitor? Yeah. Will they eat our lunch? No,” said Toner, who serves on OpenAI’s board.

While Suleyman is convinced that the US is not in danger of losing its lead, he is not ruling out competition either. “I just think in general it’s better to approach it with humility and recognize that they’re also going to be a really significant player in this industry for the next few decades,” he said.