: Opinion: Govts, Big Tech in playoff for world power #IndiaNEWS #News By Cecilia Rikap, Bengt-Ã…ke Lundvall Big Tech companies and the Chinese and US governments are embroiled in a complex relationship

@IndiaNEWS

Posted in: #IndiaNEWS

Opinion: Govts, Big Tech in playoff for world power #IndiaNEWS #News
By Cecilia Rikap, Bengt-Ã…ke Lundvall
Big Tech companies and the Chinese and US governments are embroiled in a complex relationship of harmony and conflict. We are all at the mercy of the outcome.
“Simply put, they have too much power,� US Congressman David Cicilline said of American Big Tech in a 2020 congressional hearing. That same year the Chinese government announced new regulations forcing Chinese company Alibaba to cancel its affiliate Ant Group’s listing on the stock market. China later ordered Ant Group’s financial activities to be terminated, leaving only its e-payments business intact.
Complex Interplay
These tussles between states and corporations represent a complex interplay between the world’s most powerful actors. Tech giants help define their home countries’ mix of nationalism and globalism. They are bishops in their states’ strategic and long-term chess game for world power. However, tech giants also challenge their states’ power and contribute to polarisation in their home countries.
The battle rages not only between corporations and their home states. The US denied some Chinese enterprises access to the US market – a well-known example is its ban of Huawei, to block its development of 5G technology. Meanwhile, the US put pressure on other countries to follow suit and exclude Chinese businesses from their markets.
Google, proving its support of the US and mindful of the threat Chinese technology posed to its own business, restricted Huawei’s access to essential smartphone apps, forcing Huawei to use or develop new ones. Beyond that, the US attempted to prevent international scientific collaboration with scholars based in China.
The US presents these measures as responses to China competing unfairly. Accusations of Chinese disrespect for intellectual property, state subsidies and protectionism reinforce a generalised criticism of China’s political system.
Great Firewall
China’s Great Firewall, which limits foreigners’ digital operations, is seen as especially provoking given the importance of data harvesting in the AI race. Certainly, the Firewall has been instrumental in Alibaba and Tencent catching up in that race.
China has also developed advanced telecommunications infrastructure, encouraged its tech companies to drive AI adoption and innovation, and fostered collaboration between industry and public universities. As China catches up in AI, Chinese tech giants are emerging. This has rung alarm bells for both US tech giants and the US government.
An ad hoc group dubbed the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) is chaired by Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chairman, and includes senior managers from Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Intraday stocks under 50 NSE India Twitter of India

Vote Up Vote Down

Login to post a comment!