While the spread of AI has been met perhaps with a lot of scepticism in the west, China has fully embraced the technology, explains Amy Hawkins, from millions of users talking to AI doctors, to the use of intelligent robots in factories, and drones delivering food on the Great Wall of China. AI has also been eagerly taken up by the state, not least in the opportunities it provides for further surveillance, the Guardian’s senior China correspondent says. Amy talks to Annie Kelly about the prospects and pitfalls provided by…
Tag: Technology
AI surveillance is being supercharged – and it will chill social progress | Bruce Schneier and Jon Penney
In the near future, AI-powered surveillance systems will be able to track everything we do in public, and much of what we do in private. And if we do something wrong – shoplift, litter, jaywalk, you name it – the system will notice, retain it, tie it to your official government record, communicate that fact to you, and provide real-time alerts to any relevant authorities … and maybe also to the general public. Think of these systems as automated speed cameras, but on steroids. Only they’ll enforce not just speed…
China wants to solve the hardest problem in robotics – making hands
Human hands – nimble, nerve-filled appendages that are the most flexible part of the human skeleton – are exceptionally complex. Many tasks that most people can do largely without thinking, from tying a pair of shoelaces to buttoning up a shirt, in fact require a complex set of neurological instructions and precise choreography. In thousands of years of human history, no machine has been able to truly replicate human’s greatest tool. But now, as artificial intelligence (AI) races forwards, some companies think they are close to surpassing this final but…
What is China’s SpaceSail, and could it rival Elon Musk’s Starlink?
Elon Musk’s Starlink has long dominated the satellite internet industry, but a Chinese government-backed project is aiming to challenge its position. SpaceSail has just a few hundred satellites in low Earth orbit compared with Starlink’s 10,000-plus. But the company says it now has enough satellites to begin its first commercial application, is scaling up at speed, and is reportedly negotiating with dozens of countries to provide satellite internet coverage. According to Blaine Curcio, founder of Hong Kong-based firm Orbital Gateway Consulting, SpaceSail is “deliberately targeting” places where Starlink has faced…
Chinese supercomputer leapfrogs best US machines to be ranked world’s fastest
A supercomputer in China now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess. The LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list. China’s LineShine differs from other high-performance computers in that it runs entirely on conventional computer chips (CPUs), instead of the graphics processors (GPUs), commonly used for…
Inspired by Ukraine, and worried by China: Taiwan teaches its citizens how to fly drones
In a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device as it hums through the air. Cheers break out as Pan, who has never flown a drone before, steers it around a rectangular course marked by traffic cones without crashing. Around him are about two dozen fellow trainees, all signed up for the same course: Taiwan’s first civil defence drone training programme. “The war in Ukraine has really…
Chinese activist in UK told by X that abusive deepfakes do not breach rules
A high-profile Chinese activist in the UK who was inundated with deepfake posts on X portraying her as a sexually promiscuous drug addict was told that the abuse did not breach the rules of Elon Musk’s platform. Apple Peiqing Ni, the 27-year-old founder of the UK-based China Dissent Network, had been advised by UK police to complain to the US-headquartered platform after she was targeted by what she believes is a pro-regime bot. The abuse included 12 posts tagging Ni and containing fake photographs and videos of her. The captions…
World’s first wind-powered underwater datacentre starts operating in China
The world’s first wind-powered underwater datacentre has started operations off the coast of Shanghai, as China presses forwards with solutions for energy challenges created by the country’s artificial intelligence boom. The Shanghai Lingang undersea datacentre demonstration project, which launched in May, has a capacity of 24 megawatts. It is a joint effort between HiCloud Technology and China Communications Construction, a state-owned company. Located more than 6 miles (10km) off the coast of Shanghai, the datacentre is submerged 10 metres below the surface of the water and is powered by a…
The Guardian view on the splinternet: where China led, Iran and others are eagerly following | Editorial
China boasts of having the world’s largest population of internet users: 1.125 billion by the end of 2025, according to official figures. But as one joke has it, the Great Firewall – blocking not only politically sensitive material but also global tech firms such as Google and Meta – has produced what looks more like the world’s largest intranet. Beijing is not an anomaly, but a pioneer. Its extraordinary investment in the apparatus of “cyber sovereignty” – others would call it censorship and repression – is guiding other authoritarian countries. A realm defined by…
EU fines Temu for failing to stop sale of illegal and dangerous products
EU regulators have fined the Chinese shopping website Temu €200m (£173m) for failing to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous products. The European Commission imposed the penalty after a 19-month investigation that found consumers were very likely to encounter illegal or unsafe products including baby toys and electronics on the firm’s website. An unpublished mystery shopping exercise carried out for the commission found a “high percentage” of unsafe baby products and a “very high percentage” of dangerous chargers for sale on the platform, as well as unsafe clothes and…