The West must move quickly to prevent China from dominating key new technologies and seizing control of the “financial operating system,” according to Britain’s top cyber spy.
Jeremy Fleming, the director of the GCHQ spy agency, said the West was fighting for control of technology like artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and genetics in an unusually blunt voice.
At Imperial College London, Fleming said, “Significant technology leadership is moving East.”
“The concern is that China’s scale and technical clout give it the ability to control the global operating system.”
“We are now at a fork in the road,” he said.
According to Fleming, world powers will struggle to shape the future by creating the best technology, recruiting the smartest people, and dominating the global norms that will regulate the technologies.
