Deploying U.S. AI Leadership for COVID-19

Among the cutting-edge technologies being employed by public health experts to map various aspects of COVID-19 both at home and abroad, artificial intelligence (AI) faces a test under life-and-death circumstances.  The ability of AI systems to undertake pattern detection and predict the spread of the pandemic and its treatments is promising.  The benefit of machine learning includes its powerful ability to analyze historic data to find key variables.  This task is dependent upon humans, however, specifically in the ability of data scientists who can work on creating data sets that supercomputers then can model.  On a global basis, this will require pooling both technical and human resources.

Given the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, historic data inputted for AI analysis may be of limited value.  Real-time data comparing growth curves in countries around the world, along with population and demographic information by neighborhood, may prove to be a better vein for producing actionable data anywhere and everywhere.  Automated machine learning also may improve the efficiency of data scientists, enabling them to focus on new data generation while relying on computer-to-computer analysis of massive-scale number crunching.

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Don’t Let Huawei Control 5G

President Trump has taken a firm stand against Huawei, the Chinese telecom behemoth – and for good reason.  Huawei is not your garden-variety Chinese company in the same vein as Tencent, Alibaba, or Baidu.  By many credible accounts, Huawei is a corporate extension of the Chinese government, replete with Beijing back channels and generous government support. 

In a report released by the U.S. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence back in 2012, Huawei and ZTE Corp., another Chinese company, were described as potential threats to U.S. security interests precisely because of Chinese government involvement.  Last month, the U.S. Navy reported it was under intense “cyber-siege” by Chinese hackers.  These follow a litany of allegations that have Huawei engaged in spying, commercial espionage, and intellectual property theft over many years.

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