By Hennry Paredes

Faculty Mentor: Jason Davidson

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly become more important to countries today for its great potential. This includes the US and China, the top two competitors in AI. China’s AI technology has rapidly been growing in recent years due to its unique advantages in big data, implementation, increasing military-civil fusion, and state-led direction. While the US still holds significant advantages in AI technology, China’s continuing rise in AI, and US lag in AI regulation, means a shift in US policy is necessary to ensure that the US surpasses, or at least rivals, China’s AI technology in the future. This research analyzes different policy approaches including containment, cooperation, and strategic competition and evaluates them on their efficacies, externalities, and costs to determine what the best policy approach is for the Biden administration. It finds that the Biden administration should expand on its current strategic competition approach with more specific objectives to address China’s AI technology growth and maintain US AI leadership.