Google has reportedly achieved the famous Quantum Supremacy, as the Financial Timesfirst reported on 20 September 2019. Indeed, the NASA/Google claim “that our processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task.” This would mean indeed quantum supremacy, i.e. out-powering even the most powerful classical computer with a quantum computer for a computing task (for more explanations, see The Coming Quantum Computing Disruption, Artificial Intelligence and Geopolitics (1)).
The paper describing this achievement was, however, then removed from the NASA website, the initial publisher. We can find, of course, cached versions of the paper, for example here (Bing cache) and here (pdf on a google drive). Furthermore, Bing specified it cached the page in … 2006, possibly deepening the mystery. As a result, the web is abuzz with discussions regarding the validity of the claim (e.g. Hacker News).
One way or another, this reminds us that a world with quantum computers is about to be born. All actors need to take this new future into account, in all its dimensions. This is even truer for those concerned with international security at large.
This article is the first of a new series that focuses on understanding the coming quantum-AI world. How will this future world look like? What will be the impacts on geopolitics and international security? When will these changes take place?
The American manoeuvres could also be seen as a follow up to the giant NATO Arctic exercise, Trident Juncture. That Arctic exercise involved 50.000 soldiers, 150 planes, 10.000 land vehicles and 60 warships. Landing, deployment and combat exercises took place from Norway to Iceland. The NATO manoeuvres were led to demonstrate reaction capability against a hypothetical adversary that would endanger a fellow NATO member in the Arctic region (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Warming Arctic – The race to Neo-Mercantilism(s)”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 12, 2018) .
However, it must be noted that, from 11 to 17 September 2018, the Russian military organised its own massive manoeuvres. Vostock 18 mobilized 300.000 soldiers, more than 36.000 land vehicles, 80 warships and 1000 planes. For the first time, the Russian political and military authorities had invited the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to participate. China’s involvement confers an added geopolitical significance to this event. It demonstrates the political and military closeness of Russia and China in the face of possible strategic threats (Lyle J. Goodstein, “What Russia’s Vostok-18 Exercise with China Means“, The National Interest, September 5, 2018).
This
combination of tensions and strategies has geopolitical and economic consequences
for both political and corporate actors.
The warming Arctic, a great attractor for geopolitical tensions
We must closely analyse the geography of this U.S. Navy exercise, because it reveals how the rapid warming of the region triggers a new strategic and military state of play between the U.S, Russia, and China.
The centre of this state of play is the use and the status of the Russian Northern Sea Route. This maritime route connects the Bering Strait to Norway and the North Atlantic area. Since 2018, it has become a powerful attractor for the global rising strategic tensions between the U.S. and China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Warming Arctic – The race to Neo-Mercantilism(s)”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 12, 2018).
Those tensions are rising because of the trade war. They are converging in the different areas where the U.S. and Chinese interests intersect. Thus, this convergence heightens the risks of a “hot conflict” between the U.S., China and Russia as China’s powerful partner.
The Arctic: the new Great frontier?
The choice of the Aleutian Islands for the “Arctic Expeditionary Capabilities Exercise” is particularly telling. As it happens, this archipelago creates a natural semi circle on the Pacific side of the Bering Strait. In other terms, securing this archipelago means securing the Pacific access to the Bering Strait. Thus, it also secures the Asian entry and exit to the Russian Northern Sea Route. Being able to intervene in this area is a particularly important capability for the U.S. military, because the Chinese ship owners are increasingly using the NSR.
In the meantime, the Russian political, economic, and military authorities have launched a massive program of infrastructure, maritime and defence development for this 4500 km long area (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).
That interest lasts and further grows. For example, in April 2019, the economic development of the Russian Arctic was also an important topic during the Beijing second Belt and Road Forum. There, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin exchanged about the necessary Chinese and Asian investments for the next phase of development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) (Atle Staalesen, “Putin steps up talk with Beijing over Arctic Shipping”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 30, 2019).
Moreover, Vladimir Putin took the project to the next level. He declared that the Northern Sea Route could become part of the Chinese Maritime Belt and Road initiative. This would imply major Chinese investments. Those would further develop the logistical and, especially, transhipment capabilities along the Siberian coast (Staalesen, ibid).
Escaping the trade war?
So, for Beijing, the NSR and the European and Atlantic market outlets are becoming increasingly important. As it happens, the growing use of the NSR could become a way to mitigate the economic pressure that the trade war imposes on the Chinese economic growth despite the Chinese resilience (Amy Gunia, “China’s growth is at its lowest in almost three decades”, Time, 15 July, 2019). That is why having multiple accesses to the European market becomes so important.
Symmetrically, if the U.S. power cannot contain the development of the land B&R initiative, their rising influence on this segment of the maritime B&R is all the more important.
The U.S. Arctic: U.S. Frontier or Front?
Thus, the U.S. Navy manoeuvres in the Aleutian Island are intersecting with the Russian and the Chinese strategies. This way, the U.S. military reminds the whole Pacific region that the U.S has the capability to intervene this side of the Route.
The U.S. implements a new continental strategy of control
The same is true for the Arctic and Atlantic side of the Northern Sea Route. In this context, the 2018 Trident Juncture manoeuvres appear as being a demonstration of force between Iceland and Norway, at the Western exit of the Route.
In other terms, the U.S. Arctic military build up is literally a geopolitical pincer movement. As it happens, it reveals how the U.S. Navy is implementing a continental strategy of control of the NSR. And thus, it turns the Route into a support of the U.S. military influence over this new passageway, vital to the advancement of the Chinese interests in Europe and in the Atlantic.
Old geopolitics for a warming planet
In other words, the U.S. military might deploys itself on both point of entries of the NSR. This unveils a new age for a century long question. The U.S. founding father of geopolitics, Alfred Mahan pondered this very question at the end of the 19th century. According to him, it is possible to control the Heartland (Eurasia) through sea power, and, henceforth, to be a world power. The way the U.S. and China competition about the NSR links itself with the trade war appears as being the current form of the competition for the world island, in a time of climate change. And the U.S. military build up is a form of capability escalation, while the Chinese navy is more and more active in other parts of the Pacific.
It remains to be seen if this situation is the equivalent of a “plateau” or if it is going to become the point of support for a new cycle of escalation that could lead to war. In any case, the geopolitical and economic consequences of this shifting state of play are piling up and combining. And they need to be assessed and considered by and for economic, political and military actors.
Featured image: Adapted from Cryosphere Fuller Projection (2007) – Author, Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal. Full graphic, including sources, referencing etc are available here: http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/cryosphere – Image donated by author, no restrictions on use.
Using exclusively open source information in both Chinese and English, we found that only the first three of the famous BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi) had declared strategies and actions in the quantum world. After Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, we examined Huawei, as well as Quantum CTek, as actors of the Chinese private quantum effort. Finally, we also looked at the Chinese supercomputers manufacturers and did not find any open evidence of investment in QIS.
A country-wide division of labour?
As shown in the graph below, it is interesting to see that a division of labour of sorts takes place among the main private Chinese Quantum actors.
The Chinese Private Sector and Quantum Information Science and Technologies
(The 11 October 2019 graph was updated to include Qasky 问天量子 – Anhui Qasky Quantum Technology Co. Ltd, specialised in Quantum cryptography and communication and created in 2009).
Three out of four private actors develop quantum platforms where the quantum computing capabilities may be tested and experimented.
Tencent appear to specialise itself in experimenting and developing applications for QIS. Its main focuses are pharmaceuticals and finance, notably communication and security, and potentially simulations. Tencent thus contributes to spread QIS in the real world. It will ease early adoption of QIS and their applications.
Baidu is especially strong in venture capital. This strength is still only a potential as far as quantum technologies are concerned. Indeed, Baidu venture capital is currently mainly targeting artificial intelligence, but quantum is also underlined as a field of interest. As a result, Baidu should be able to invest rapidly in any promising quantum technology or application. This could prove a crucial advantage for China in the future, notably once efforts towards quantum computing increasingly bear fruits.
From research to market, beyond the public-private divide
If most private actors carry out research in QIS, so far Alibaba dominates that field. It does so notably in collaboration with the research public sector. The creation of Quantum CTek, as a child of the research of the University of Science and Technology of China, confirms the importance of the public sector for research in QIS.
Thus, assessing the potentiality of the Chinese ecosystem demands to look at both the public and private sectors. Together the private and the public create a relatively dense network. Furthermore, public research has notably been active since 2013 (see for details and sources Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (3): Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing).
The Chinese Private-Public Quantum Ecosystem
That trend is not specific to China. Worldwide, for the race to quantum, the divisions public-private and research-commercial are blurred, if not misleading. This disappearance of classical categorisations is, actually, a striking feature of the global quantum ecosystem. It will most probably also impact the future quantum-powered world.
This article focuses on the participation of the Chinese Web and IT giants in the race to quantum information science (QIS) and technologies.
We look at Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and Huawei involvement in QIS. Their quantum activity ranges from setting up research and development labs and centres to launching quantum cloud platforms. It goes from quantum computing research to emphasis on users’ applications. We highlight investments when available. Alternatively, we estimate activity, when possible, through other means.
We also mention Quantum CTek and its activity in quantum communication, notably for mobile phones. Finally we address the absence of involvement in QIS – according to open source information – of Chinese supercomputers manufacturers. We conclude with thoughts on the possible overall strategic evolution of the Chinese Quantum ecosystem. Indeed, we must consider and understand business efforts within the framework of the overall Chinese national policy in terms of QIS, which we mapped previously (see Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (3): Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing).
Alibaba develops a double approach to quantum computing. First, it works with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Second, it endeavours its own research with the DAMO (Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, and Outlook) Academy.
Collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences
On 30 July 2015, through a 15-years partnership, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Alibaba Cloud (aka Aliyun) created in Shanghai the Chinese Academy of Sciences – Alibaba Quantum Computing Laboratory (中国科学院-阿里巴巴量子计算实验室) (Xinhua, 3 August 2015; CAS, 2 September 2015). Meanwhile the CAS Shanghai established, the Center for Excellence in Innovation in Quantum Information and Quantum Technology (Ibid.).
The private-public laboratory is modelled after the collaboration between the NASA Ames, Google Research and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) that led to the establishment in May 2013 of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) (Ibid.).
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On 14 July 2019, new Chinese statistics revealed that growth in China was lowering. Media sensationally reported the news. For example, The New York Times titled “China’s Economic Growth Hits 27-Year Low as Trade War Stings” (Keith Bradsher). Meanwhile what is happening in the area of new technologies? Are other indicators available? Indeed, the famous trade war is also and even first and foremost a technological war, with far-reaching consequences in terms of geopolitics.
We focus here on the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme and policy, and how the UK fares in the race to quantum technologies. This article is part of our ongoing research on the issue. With the first item of the series, we started covering the Netherlands, the EU, Germany (briefly), the U.S., China, and, for the private sector, IBM and the Softbank’s mega Vision Fund, with an interesting participation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE (see Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (3): Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing, 17 December 2018).
Read also the follow up article adding to the mapping:
At the end of the article, we update our evaluation of the race to quantum with two series of graphs showing the evolution of public funding over time. A first series focuses on countries in Europe plus the U.S., then, a second, adds China.
An early start, driven by the Ministry of Defence
A National Security Concern
In February 2012, the UK “National Security Through Technology” white paper recommended that the defence and security R&D should evolve to meet the new threat (DSTL/PUB098369 – 2016: 5.2.12, 6.1.12, 6.1.13). As a result, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) decided to emulate the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – DARPA (Ibid.). Between 20% and 30% of MoD research will be devoted “to investigate, and develop rapidly, promising technologies which have the potential to achieve game changing and disruptive advantage” (Ibid.).
Quantum technologies were now directly part of the British security agenda.
Indeed, this led not only to development within the MoD, as it developed specific quantum programs, but also spurred the evolution towards a nation-wide quantum policy. Incidentally, the UK showed more agility than the U.S., which only started a comprehensive “quantum 2.0” policy much later, in 2018 (see Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing first article).
Thus, in November 2013, the UK MoD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), in partnership with the Royal Society, organised the Chicheley Hall meeting, which is now seen as the starting point for the British Quantum 2.0 strategic policy. This meeting gathered “leading academics, representatives from industry and relevant government departments”, to “explore how the UK might exploit emerging quantum technologies for the benefit of defence, security and the wider UK economy” (DSTL/PUB75620 – 2014; DSTL/PUB098369 – 2016).
Beside the 2012 white paper, that the MoD would be the driving force behind the British Quantum efforts should come as no surprise. Indeed, the UK MoD has identified quantum science and technologies as disruptive and demanding consideration at least since 2007 in its strategic foresight document Global Strategic Trends (see third edition 2007 out to 2036; fourth edition 2010 out to 2040; fifth edition 2014 up to 2045; and of course the latest sixth edition 2018 out to 2050 – for more on what is strategic foresight and how to do it, see our methodological section and our philosophy).
New funding on top of scientific funding, not instead of it
It is important to emphasise that this policy framework comes on top of classical funding of scientific research (i.e. research, training and fellowships), not instead of it (Pr David Delpy, PowerPoint Presentation, The UK National Quantum Technologies Programme, EPSRC, 7 March 2014). The new UKNQT program is truly aimed at transforming scientific findings “to exploit the potential of quantum science and develop a range of emerging technologies with the potential to benefit the UK ” (Ibid., slide 2). It thus also needs research in quantum mechanics and related fields to continue.
As of today, the overall EPSRC portfolio for quantum represents £179,67 million (yet still only 3.27% of the whole portfolio), including the £120,69 million for the UKNQT Hubs (the largest grey bubble in the diagram below), we shall detail next. We may thus assume that the funding available for what we called “classical” research, i.e. outside the national policy comprehensive framework, is £58,98 million over five years (usual length of funding).3
The overall quantum funding is awarded to 21 “research organisations”, mostly universities. We should however also consider – for further research – the specificities of British Universities in general and of each of them in particular, as they have their own specific sources of funding, through trusts, charities, endowments and others.
Building a dynamic ecosystem to be at the forefront of the race
As displayed above, the EPSRC visualisation tool also provides us with a break-down by sector of interest for future research application. There, we note that £91.5 million are referenced as belonging to “no sector relevance identified” (the larger bubble). This impossibility to identify a relevant sector highlights the challenge quantum stakeholders face: uncertainty and difficulty to imagine a future including quantum technologies (see “★ Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (2): The Quantum Computing Battlefield and the Future“, 19 November 2018 – Articles starting with a ★ are premium articles, members-only. The introduction remains nonetheless open access.).
In turn, it is hard to convince investors and funders to participate in the quantum effort for long enough. Meanwhile, it is difficult to find users, to interest them in the QIS and to get them to be ready for the coming revolution. It is all the more complex that we do not know yet with certainty the whole range of future usages for QIS.
Being able to mobilise around QIS not only scientists and a select few, but also all future users, including industries, is a crucial challenge for the sector. Those who will succeed best in their mobilization effort are likely to be at the top of the race and to lead the future quantum world.
The UK Quantum national policy and notably the technological hubs are one way to overcome this hurdle and to mobilise the country.
The Hubs
Out of the overall national policy funding, as we saw, £120 million is devoted to the creation of four quantum hubs. Starting in December 2014, they operationalise public-private research-industry partnerships. They thus highlight and construct the comprehensive character of the British quantum policy.
Each hub contributes to make sure that QIS are developed practically. Indeed, through them and the funding available for industry and partners from the hubs – and vice-versa, as well as through common projects, potential users become stakeholders in QIS development. Meanwhile, the hubs allow for understanding of QIS. How and why to use quantum technologies may progressively emerge.
As a result, the hubs somehow co-develop QIS with the ability to imagine and foresee the usage of quantum technologies. The UK position in the race and for the emerging quantum revolution world is thus enhanced.
The British Quantum Hubs
The National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Metrology
It received an initial grant funding of £35,51 million (from 01-12-2014 to 30-11-2019 – EPSRC)
Led by the University of Birmingham, it includes the Universities of Glasgow, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex and over 70 industry partners. It is organised according to practical applications in six main sectors: defence, transport, manufacturing, oil and gas, civil engineering and healthcare.
QuantIC
This hub focuses on Quantum Enhanced Imaging and develops ultra-high sensitivity camera. It seeks to align with “industry priorities”. Applications “include visualising gas leaks, seeing through smoke, and even looking round corners or underneath our skin” (UKNQT Hubs).
It received as initial grant £23,06 million (from 01-12-2014 to 30-11-2019 – EPSRC)
NQIT or the Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub
NQIT seeks to build a quantum computer demonstrator, the Q20:20 engine. It received as initial funding £38,03 million (from 01-12-2014 to 30-11-2019 – EPSRC).
Its approach is through “a networked, hybrid light-matter approach to quantum information processing”. Besides, it also fosters “industrial engagement“, “to ensure uptake of early spin-out technologies and to identify new opportunities for user-driven applications”. NQIT has also singled out the Space sector for quantum computing and simulation demonstration (website).
The Quantum Communications Hub
The Quantum Communications Hub focuses on the development of quantum communication through the construction and operation of quantum links, using notably quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. It received an initial grant funding of £24,1 million (from 01-12-2014 to30-11-2019 – EPSRC).
The link is built over optical fibre, and its construction involved two other companies, Innovation Martlesham, a cluster of high-tech ICT companies located at Adastral Park, and one of its company, ADVA and ID Quantique (Ibid., “Quantum Network Link Launched at Adastral Park“, 28 March 2019).
Consequently, the building of the link allowed stressing the industrial comprehensiveness of the program.
This links represents the first stage of the planned British “large scale Quantum Network test-bed” (see Pr Tim Spiller, University of York, “Quantum Communications Hub“, slide 18, May 2016).
It positions strongly the UK in this specific aspect of the race, as shown in the summarised slide below depicting the main advances up to December 2018 (Helene Lavoix, Presentation for ICoQC 2018 – The Quantum Battlefield and the Future, 30 November 2018, Paris, France, slide 7).
Helene Lavoix, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, “Presentation for ICoQC 2018 – The Quantum Battlefield and the Future”, 30 November 2018, Paris, France, slide 7
MOD quantum funding
Meanwhile, the MOD also develops specific quantum application, as we could expect considering the role played in driving forward the overall British policy. For the initial five years program (2014-2019), the overall funding of the Dstl program reached approximately £36 million. It is thus on a par with each of the civilian hubs.
It includes “two demonstrators: a quantum navigation system, and a quantum gravity imager, and (as at July 2016) 46 PhD projects” (DSTL/PUB098369: 46-53).
We are reaching the end of the first UK NQT effort. When the program started, the UK was, with China, one of the few countries with a quantum policy. Now, many other countries have joined in what became a race. Efforts thus must continue.
Chariots of Fire: a marathon and not a sprint
In November 2018, the UK pursued its strategy and extended the National Quantum Technologies Program. It announced a £235 million funding boost, which includes establishing a new National Quantum Computing Centre, on top of ” £80 million announced in September for the continuation of 4 quantum development hubs and means the UK’s pioneering programme will receive £315 million ($414,42 million) between 2019 and 2024″ (gov.uk, “New funding puts UK at the forefront of cutting edge quantum technologies“, 1 November 2018).
As the ISCF corresponds to a four year efforts, we may
tentatively estimate that the corresponding yearly fundings – to allow for comparison across countries – are £38,25 million
($50,32 million) for the public part and £51,25 million ($67,42 million) for
the industry’s share.
As a result the UK may stress that the overall amount of
combined investment in quantum technology “will
pass a major £1 billion investment milestone since its inception in 2014”
(Gov.uk, press release, “£1 billion investment
makes UK a frontrunner in quantum technologies“, 13 June 2019). The communication
effort as well as the title of the press release emphasises the global
competition at work in the field.
Over the coming five years, between 2019 and 2024, the UK Quantum effort will thus benefit at least from a £63 million ($82,88 million) yearly public budget for the National Policy. To this we may add an estimated yearly £60 million for “classical scientific research”. Finally, if we add the 13 June 2019 announcement (until 2023, thus over four years), we have for the overall quantum effort £161,25 million ($212,13 million) yearly public funding and a supplementary yearly £51,25 million ($67,42 million) from the industry.
As a result, the race for quantum, with the UK NQT added, for the public sector mainly, now looks as on the following series of graphs:
The state of the race to quantum without China
2002 (estimates and real)
2013 (estimates and real))
2014
2015
2018-2019 to 2022-2024
The state of the race to quantum with China
With China – 2002 (estimates and real)
With China – 2013 (estimates and real)
With China – 2014
With China – 2015
With China – 2019 to 2022-2024
Next steps for the analysis of the race to quantum
Now, considering the peculiar characteristics of the race (see Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing), a view from the bottom-up must be added to the analysis. There we shall need to pay attention to the importance of ecosystems, to competition alongside international collaboration. This is work in progress, besides continuing adding new actors to our mapping.
Meanwhile, we are also working on the creation of an indicator that we currently call “quantum readiness” and that will allow for positioning the various actors according to the race and to the future world.
Notes and Bibliography
Featured image: Chicheley Hall by User: dronir [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons.
1 The UK program corresponded approximately to $440 million (CRS) before the Brexit and the related attack against the British Pound. To consider the fall of the pound, we estimate that half of the program is at the much lower rate of 1.315 USD to GBP (average of yearly average rate from 2016 to mid 2019). We thus obtain an exchange rate of 1,4726 for the first program. We shall use this rate for all corresponding dates. The UK NQT 1, as a result, reaches an overall amount of $397,61 million. We shall use for the following years the average rate of 1.315 as an approximation.
2 The length for the funding is not mentioned in the reports. EPSRCs funding is usually granted over five years programs. We thus assume that the figures given are each for a five years period. We shall retain these in our graphs. They are indeed an approximation of the cumul of all the yearly fundings received for a year.
3The earliest EPSRC funding found was in the year 2006. It corresponded then to approximately £0,53 million a year, to increase then over the years.
Pritchard, Jonathan, and Stephen Till. “UK Quantum Technology Landscape 2014.” Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. DSTL/PUB75620 – 2014.
Pritchard, Jonathan, and Stephen Till. ed. “A perspective of UK Quantum Technology prepared by and for the UK Quantum Technology Community: UK Quantum Technology Landscape 2016”. DSTL/PUB098369 – 2016.
On 4 June 2019, the French National Cybersecurity Agency, the ANSSI, celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a Cyberfestival.
The Agora 41 is taking shape
The Agora 41 (see its dedicated page on the ANSSI website) was fully part of the event. In September 2018, the ANSSI created this strategic forum of discussion and reflection composed by a group of experts (see Shaping the Security of the Cyber Future – Fr).
Enabling a Victorious Cyber-Ecosystem for Security (aka “ecosystem”)
The only rule we have to follow is freedom… of thoughts, production, output. And, of course, freedom is challenging.
During the event, each group presented its work in progress. We are all breaking new ground as this is the Agora 41 first year. We notably all managed to come to terms with the challenge to get busy experts from very diverse backgrounds working together. The diversity, willingly built within the Agora 41, thus starts bearing fruits. Cross-fertilisation and emergence of novel ideas for and perspectives on cybersecurity for the 21st century has begun.
A very special Guest, Professor Villani
Most notably, Professor Cédric Villani, the very famous French mathematician and elected deputy at the National Assembly, the leading and key political figure in France for everything related to sciences and new technologies, unexpectedly, included the Agora 41 in his very busy agenda.
Professor Villani listened to presentations, shared insights and commended the Agora’s efforts.
A Special issue to download
Last but not least, for the ANSSI’s anniversary, Sécurité Globale (Global Security) published a special number.
You will find there contributions from the ANSSI Director, Guillaume Poupard, and from members of the Agora 21. You can download this special number as pdf below:
In May 2019, for the second time in three months, Central U.S. is hammered by record-breaking floods. Those floods are impacting Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa (Susannah Cullinane, Hollie Silvermane, Sheena Jones, “Central US reels from week of deadly weather”, CNN, May 26, 2019). In Van Buren, Arkansas, the Arkansas River level reached 38.3 feet, breaking the 1945 record at 38.1. Those floods follow the historical ones of March 2019 (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Bomb Cyclone on the Midwest: Floods, the Trade War and the Coming Agricultural Super Storm”, The Red (Team) Analysis, April 15, 2019).
In-between, the season has been unusually wet. As a result, already battered farmers face mammoth problems to plant the 2019 crops of corn and soy. In the middle of these extreme conditions, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma are going through an exceptionally violent tornado season. For example, on 24 May 2019, Jefferson City, the state-capital of Missouri was devastated by a monster tornado, almost a wide mile, with peak winds reaching almost 160 miles per hour. On the morning, the city was in ruin (“Tornado That Ripped Through Jefferson City, Missouri, Rated EF3; Nearly 2 Dozen Injured », Weather.com, 23 May, 2019).
These events take place after the deep and lasting damages the March 2019 catastrophic floods generated. However, these very impressive destructions are only the visible dimension of the unfolding “long catastrophe” that comes in their wake. That long and complex catastrophe emerges from the combination of the slowdown of agriculture induced by the historical series of extreme weather events on the farm belt with the US-China trade war (Valantin, ibid).
Those, furthermore, combine with the rapidly spreading pandemic of African swine fever. The pandemic started in August 2018 has killed at least one and half million pigs in China and is now expanding in Asia (Dennis Normile, “African swine fever keeps spreading in Asia, threatening food security”, Science, May 19, 2019). Among a cascade of agricultural and food consequences, the decreasing number of pigs entails a diminution in soybean demand, as soy products are part of pigs’ diet (From Bloomberg, “How China’s swine fever outbreak is upending the soybean markets”, The South China Morning Post, 15 April 2019).
Is this extremely violent combination of climate, international and sanitary factors creating a very peculiar kind of pressure on the Midwest? As a result is the status of the Midwest in a globalised economy questioned?
In order to answer these related questions, it is of paramount importance to understand that those events also signal that we are entering in an age of permanent change, necessitating a constant adaptation to climate change and the consequent “long emergency” era (James Howard Kunstler, The Long emergency, surviving the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century, 2005).
The Midwest as the catastrophic frontier
Floods and tornadoes as sustainable catastrophe
Since March 2019, the Midwest has been through a situation that we qualify here as “the long catastrophe”. It started when, between 14 and 20 March 2019, a historically powerful “bomb cyclone”, combined with snowmelt devastated Colorado and Central U.S., especially the Midwest “farmbelt” of Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas (Phil McCausland, « Midwest flooding inundates farms, rural towns to threaten livelihoods and future“, NBC News, March 22, 2019).
Consequently, these weather events triggered immense floods, which wrecked more than a million of acres (405000 hectares). These floods have immediate direct consequences, because they drown arable lands, destroy crops stocks, roads, houses, motorways, railroads, bridges, barns, cars, trucks, etc. (Humeyra Pamuk, P.J Huffstutter, Tom Polansek, “U.S farmers face devastation following Midwest floods”, Reuters, March 20, 2019).
All along April and May, the situation worsened. Indeed, from April 2018 to April 2019, the region also faced the wettest 12 months in a row since 1895. Soaked soils cannot absorb water anymore, which flows in the flooding rivers, such as the Arkansas River, the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. On 21 May, after 136 days, the Mississippi River flood broke the 1927 flooding record (Steve Hardy, “Mississippi River breaks 92-year old flood stage record; here’s when water could go down », The Advocate, May 21, 2019.
Towards a Midwest climate isolation?
Furthermore, this means that the combination of agricultural, commercial and financial loss is aggravating the transport infrastructure’s situation of the Midwest. Indeed, the river, railways and road heavy bulk transport are in a very bad shape, because of 30 years of insufficient management and investments. The floods are worsening the state of the vital infrastructures, when these connect the Midwest farmers to the world markets (David Hoppelman, ibid). This situation is aggravated by an historical series of tornadoes that devastated the Midwest, 13 days in a row (Amanda Schmidt, “May 2019 could be historic month for tornadoes after unprecedented twister streak finally ends at 13 days“, Accuweather, May 31, 2019.
The Midwest taken between the floods and the Asian pandemic
Delayed crops
This long catastrophe is devastating the Midwest agriculture. Only 49% of the corn acreage is planted, in sharp contrast with 78% in 2018 at the same time of year. The same can be said of soybean: 19% of acreage are planted, when 53% were planted in 2018. Going from bad to worse, only 5% of the soybean crop is now growing from the ground, against 24% in 2018 (“Crop Progress”, USDA, May 20, 2019).
As it
happens, this follows the damages of the March storm series, and their impacts are
so important because of the loss of stocks. Those have been accumulated since
2018, when the effects of the trade war launched against China led Beijing to
heighten its own tariff barriers against U.S. soybeans, while lowering them in
favour of the Brazilian production (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The
US Soybean Crop case”, The Red (Team) Analysis
Society, October 8, 2018).
Destroyed crops
In other
words, the floods have destroyed the unsold part of the 2018 crops, while
endangering the 2019 crops. They also destroyed the potential financial capital
the stocks could have been for the farmers. Furthermore, the floods neutered
the taxes potential the sell of the 2018 stocks would have represented for the
public sector and thus for the maintenance of infrastructures (Irwin Redlener,
“The deadly cost of failing infrastructure in historic Midwest floods”, The Hill, 5 April 2019).
Enter Pandemic
As it happens, a new factor is further deeply upsetting the status of the Midwest soybean growers. Since August 2018, a pandemic of African swine flu attacked the Chinese pork industry, with its 400 million domestic pigs (Dennis Normile, Ibid.). A report by the third Dutch bank, Rabobank, suggest that in the worst case, up to 200 million pigs could be threatened (Orange Wang, Chad Bray, “China’s African swine fever outbreak and US trade war combine to create perfect storm for Chinese economy”, The South China Morning Post, 3 May 2019). This would represent more pigs than the total European and American park. Meanwhile, the disease is spreading to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Russia (Dennis Normile, Ibid.).
The importance of pork in the Chinese diet is paramount because it is the favourite meat staple of the 1,4 billion strong nation. Knowing that farmers are feeding pigs with soybean products, this turns China into the main importer of soybean. If Chinese pork production were to be lowered by 30%, then the demand of soybean could decrease by 4,2% according to HSBC, knowing that the Chinese epidemic and the Asian pandemic will last several years (Orange Wang, Chad Bray, “China’s African swine fever outbreak and US trade war combine to create perfect storm for Chinese economy”, The South China Morning Post, 3 May 2019).
Riders on the storm
In other terms, the already meagre 2019 Midwest soybean production is at risk of being impacted by lowering prices due to mass death of Asian pigs. This risk is induced by the constant mortality of Chinese and Asian pigs, while the U.S. soybean crop will reach a final quantity.
If the soybean and corn prices were to rise 2019, because of the delayed crops, one must wonder if this rise will actually balance the decrease in demand due to high rate pigs mortality in China, as well as in Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Russia. As it happens, the Brazilian soybean crops and export are at record levels, because of the weak Brazilian currency. (Roberto Samora, “Brazil crops soar as weak currency, high prices boost deal“, Succesful Farming, 30/05/ 2019). It must also be added that China puts favorable tariffs on non-U.S. soybean imports, as a reaction to the high tariffs it imposes on the US soybean imports, in the context of the US-China trade war (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The US Soybean Crop case”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 8, 2018). So, there could be an abundance of soybean on the international market, while the Asian demand is going to continue decreasing. This potential price pressure would then take place at the time of the 2019 succession of extreme weather events, and of the U.S.-China trade war. It must be added that infrastructure damages, through the destruction of barns, silos, roads, highways, river ways, is semi-insulating the Midwest from world markets.
Meanwhile, this happens at a moment of widespread weather impacts all around the planet, stemming from floods, cold, heat. For example, Australia, one the wheat world producer is now importing, because of a very poor crop that follows violent episodes of drought and floods (Colin Packham, “Australia to import wheat for the first time in 12 years as drought bites”, Reuters, May 15, 2019).
Towards a global food prices crisis?
In other words, there are high risks that heightening tensions on the commodity and food markets will define the economic situation of the second half of 2019. In the same time, insurance and reinsurance companies are going to have to face the costs of the mammoth episodes of infrastructure and agricultural destruction in the Midwest.
It could be a new kind of agricultural, financial, food and social hybrid crisis. In a time of globalization, this crisis will spread … globally.
Errata 5 June 2019: We changed a sentence in the introduction where a grammatical error led to a confusion between the real number of pigs killed in China and the potential number that would be killed in a worst-case scenario. We now use the real number of pigs so far killed in China. We clarified and detailed the source for the worst case scenario in the corresponding paragraph in the body of the text, corrected the number of domestic pigs in China and added estimates from HSBC.
The U.S. and China are locked in an increasingly heated struggle for superpower status. Many perceived this confrontation initially only through the lenses of a trade war. However, the ZTE “saga” already indicated the issue was broader and involved a battle for supremacy over 21st century technologies and, relatedly, for international power (see When AI Started Creating AI – Artificial Intelligence and Computing Power, 7 May 2018).
The Sino-American technological battle increasingly looks like a fight to the death, with the offensive against Huawei aiming notably to protect future 5G networks (Cassell Bryan-Low, Colin Packham, David Lague, Steve Stecklow And Jack Stubbs, “The China Challenge: the 5G Fight“, Reuters Investigates, 21 May 2019). For Huawei and China, as well as for the world, consequences are far reaching, as, after Google “stopping Huawei’s Android license”, and an Intel and Qualcomm ban, the British chip designer ARM, held notably by Japanese Softbank, now stops relations with Huawei (Paul Sandle, “ARM supply halt deals fresh blow to Chinese tech giant Huawei“, Reuters, 22 May 2019; “DealBook Briefing: The Huawei Backlash Goes Global“, The New York Times, 23 May 2019; Tom Warren, “Huawei’s Android And Windows Alternatives Are Destined For Failure“, The Verge, 23 May 2019).
These moves underline the immense interests involved. Indeed, the new technologies, from artificial intelligence (AI) in its multiple forms to the internet of things (IoT) and communication, through the quantum information sciences (QIS) and Technologies, participate in a paradigmatic change, which also includes governance, international power and the way wars may be fought and won.
Here, we shall focus on such possible new faces of security in general and war in particular. These potential – and already operating – changes stem from the complex dynamics that have been unleashed. As we found out previously, the difficult march towards advanced robots, added to the strong interest stakeholders have in obtaining Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, notably Deep-Learning (DL), which are operational and profitable, lead to an unexpected consequence. Human beings themselves are increasingly being dragged into the ecosystem of AI-agents. They are actually turned into the actuators of algorithms.
We shall first look at what is happening and explain how human beings become the actuators of AI-agents, giving examples. Then we shall sketch a scenario explaining how this evolution could lead to a dystopian future where a state actor mastering AI-agents could win a war in a new way.
Third, we shall turn to the digital and the material worlds and to the bridges between them. We shall highlight that the need to see AI developing will also lead to a further dematerialisation of the world, with, as extreme, virtual reality. However, we shall explain that total dematerialisation is impossible and comes with a major hidden cost, rising energy consumption, with thus impacts on climate-change. We shall also highlight how users’ countries bear the brunt of the burden and face major systemic threats. Finally, we shall identify a way for them to preempt these systemic threats, in an interesting strategic twist.
How human beings become the actuators of AI-agents
Case study
The example of Google DeepMind’s Go Game
First let us take again our initial example of Google DeepMind’s go game (see Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality). As we explained, the setting of the game looks as follows:
Screenshot of the video Google DeepMind: Ground-breaking AlphaGo masters the game of Go – 1:19
We pointed out that to see DeepMind’s AI-agent becoming fully operational, one had to provide a sensor to replace the lady in C and an actuator instead of the gentleman in A.
However, to get an actuator in A, we would ideally need an advanced robot. As seen, such sophisticated advanced robots are not yet available (★ Sensor and Actuator (4)…). We are still a long way from getting the kinds of advanced robots we would need for many of the actuating tasks AI/DL-agents would ideally require (Ibid.).
Thus, what is happening is that A will remain a human being for the near future, while AI and notably DL will go on expanding because stakeholders need their expansion (Ibid.).
In other terms, stakeholders promoting AI-agents and their use, to overcome the still current dearth of non-human actuators, will turn the very human beings that AI are meant to help into the actuators of these AI-agents.
Traveling by air
As another example, let us take a series of AI-agents that aim at selling airline tickets. The final aim of the traveler is to be able to go from its home to place P. Through a series of digitalisation of the process and use of various algorithms, the best ones being of the deep-learning kind, the future traveler will be presented with a series of destinations and airlines routes and tickets. S/he will choose one then pay the airline for her or his ticket.
If our traveler has a smart phone, then s/he will be able to get the ticket on her or his smart phone. If not s/he will have to print it. At the airport, without a smart phone s/he will have to print a boarding pass.
In any case s/he will have to print the luggage tickets. According to the robots available in the airport, s/he will have to scan the boarding pass and luggage ticket, put the luggage on the carrier belt, check the weight, or, alternatively haul the luggages in a robot that will then check the luggage tickets and weight.
Finally, s/he be ready to go through security checks.
For most steps, we can see how the absence of a smart advanced device is compensated by the user, i.e. a human being. Users have been turned into the actuators of the AI-agents of the airline, meanwhile also replacing the former employees of the airline company. Furthermore, when a smart device is operational, the consumers or users are those who have to buy the smart devices. They thus also now bear parts of the investments that were once paid by companies.
The case is less clear when we look at smart homes and some of their components, such as the famous AI-assistants Amazon Alexa that connects with the smart speaker Echo or Google assistant that connects with IoT devices from cell phone to tablet through speaker Google Home.
We can imagine that one of these assistants could voice a suggestion such as “to reach on time the place where you must meet this client or that person, you should depart now and drive according to this itinerary.”
A first series of actuators would be at work that translate the result of DL algorithms into a series of sentences ordered in a way that makes sense in terms of a human agenda. Other actuators would then operate to voice the suggestions in a way a human being can hear and understand. In other cases, if speech capabilities are not available, then the advice could be displayed on a screen.
Probably, the person receiving the suggestions would perceive the AI-assistant as helping her or him, which is likely true.
Yet, from the point of view of the AI-agents, the individual would also be acting on AI-agents’ suggestions. The individual would making the AI-agents output exist in the physical world.
Training human beings in acting without thinking first
What feels disturbing from a human being point of view is that our own “cognition to action” sequence, built over 40.000 years if we consider only the Cro-magnon (Encyclopaedia Britannica), is broken. In a nutshell, if we make a very simplistic assessment of the sequence leading to our actions, we have more or less the following pattern: sensing the world, analysing the data collected, deciding according to analysis, acting. This model should be refined using available research. Yet, whatever the findings and most recent research, with the AI-assistant, our usual process is changed and one part of it is removed.
In our case, the AI-agents make the analysis, and then suggest possibilities for decisions. This is meant to reassure us and let us believe that we are free to decide to act or not, then to act accordingly.
However, deciding without any control over inputs and analysis, then acting upon this decision goes very much against the efforts at understanding, knowledge and education of thousands of years of history. It “feels” as if we were transformed into at best children, at worst slaves … or robots. Even though decision remains into our hands, decision without awareness of the analysis is not a real decision and the door is opened to the possibility for any manipulation or error.
Hence, here, the absolute need to develop trust, as well as the capacity to “enter into” and supervise the analysis, i.e. to overcome the AI “blackbox problem” (e.g. Will Knight, “The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI“, MIT Technology Review, 11 April 2017)
Actually, the fact that the corporate sector owns the AI-agents and thus will use it for its own benefit first and second for the benefit of its client only heightens the problem. Decades of advertisement and marketing attempts at manipulating the decision-taking process of consumers only makes the problem worse, to say nothing of centuries of lobbying for the benefit of companies, most often against the public good.
Thus, only a very strong role of political authorities as warrant of the public good and of the security of each and every citizen, be it an individual or a legal entity, may, at the end of the day, establish the conditions for the trust that will absolutely be necessary to see AI-agents that turn human beings into actuators develop safely.
Moreover, it will be crucial to make sure that human capabilities are not lost in the meantime. A couple of authors evoke this possibility in the case of strategic decision-making, for example (Andrew Hill, “Artificial intelligence creates real strategic dilemmas“, Financial Times, 20 May 2019).
Winning a War through Submission of the Enemy: reflection on a dystopian scenario
A dystopian scenario can be imagined to highlight some of the features of this possible reality.
The new society is segmented in two.
Wealthier citizens and companies can buy the robots that then act in their place, when these advanced robots are available. In that case, these richer people save time and resources for a certain number of tasks, completely outsourced to AI-agents and their advanced robots actuators. True enough, in the meanwhile, they also abandon part of their power, as action – as in the German Macht or in the English Might – is fundamentally power. Yet, a few of them, those who are wise enough to do so, use the time spared for other, more evolved tasks.
Poorer citizens and businesses, the large majority, is increasingly turned into the actuators of the AI-agents and their stakeholders. Their willpower is apparently maintained, but, because they act on suggestions and analyses made by AI-agents belonging to corporate stakeholders, they are de facto subservient to the interests of theses stakeholders.
For instance, continuing with our previous example, when on his or her way to a meeting, the poorer citizen’s connected device will choose an itinerary that will come close to this or that shop. The device will then tell her or him that s/he needs to buy this very product, by chance available in that shop. On the contrary, our wealthier citizen, with his or her set of robots, will not have to go through this. S/he will find the products already delivered in his or her home.
It could appear as if the poorer people were actually better off in terms of freedom than the wealthier class. This is however questionable, because in the poorer people’s case, a habit to rely on something that tells you what to do without thinking is developed. Thus, the appearance of freedom of decision is indeed only an appearance. Then, once the habit is formed and, as a result, the capability to think before to act is progressively lost, the door is opened to any manipulation.
True enough, the wealthier individuals will be put in front of the fait accompli, but the very sequence leading from reflection to action will not have been broken and damaged. If – and this is a big if – the wealthier people use the time spared to educate themselves further, then they can escape another danger, which is to completely give up any mastery over some sectors of their life.
In both cases, without strong control and protection, citizens are at great risk to lose a part of their humanity and to be transformed into things. They may progressively become the tool of AI-agents and of their stakeholders, without ever fighting, because the transition will have been slow and apparently innocuous.
Now, consider, that the main stakeholder(s) having sold the range of AI-agents is a foreign power. Alternatively, the businesses selling these AI-agents may be foreign and, for a host of reasons, including national interest and national security, have to obey foreign political authorities.
That foreign power would then have near complete control over the population using the AI-agents. In case of war, assuming the army and the political authorities of the targeted country intend to fight, the foreign actor ruling over the AI-agents could easily manipulate the using population, be it rich or poor, each according to the way they were transformed. The army could then be faced with possible attacks without and especially with a mass of enemy within, as the population could be turned in various ways against its own army. The aggressor would fight and possibly win with a minimum level of casualties.
Considering the danger, political authorities – again assuming they are neither predatory nor “sold” to a stronger and more powerful actor – have an even greater interest in making sure the population they rule do not end up actually being ruled by others.
In general terms, the point here is not to refuse technological progress, nor to heighten the fear of and hostility against AI. What matters is to be aware of the risks and to try making sure we take right actions so that we use progress at best, while we mitigate unintended adverse consequences.
More specifically, for each and every polity, it becomes important to understand the stakes, to make sure an alien and possibly negative rule is not being imposed on a candid population. Even without intended agressive intention, the very possibility that the capacity to ease a foreign rule is set up should ring the alarm bell and trigger protective actions.
Now, as was clear notably from the example of the airline travel, what is at stake here is not only the use of AI-agents. The issue is broader and includes the whole digitalisation process, as we shall now explore.
From bridging worlds to changing the balance of worlds
Initially, we identified that the sensors and actuators for an AI-agent (or a series of them) also serve as bridges between different types of worlds or reality (Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality).
Changing the worlds to overcome difficulties
Digital gateways
We can have AIs that operate solely within the digital world. In that case, sensors and actuators bridge mainly different ways to understand the digital world. For example, a sensor will “read” a digital input initially intelligible to humans or to another device and make it intelligible to the AI-agent. The actuator will take the AI output and make it understandable digitally to whichever actor needs it, be it human or not.
The latest feat realised by Google DeepMind’s AI-agent AlphaStar, when it mastered Blizzard Game StarCraft II, exemplifies such digital-only environments (AlphaStar Team, “AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II“, DeepMind Blog, 2019 – check their website for more photos and videos).
AlphaStar in action with the difference sequence, input and output – Check DeepMind original image for animation
Dematerialising the world
In a more complex way, we have sensors and actuators that must act as bridges between the physical or material world and the digital one.
Faced with the difficulty to bridge truly different worlds, one way forward, besides transforming human beings into actuator, is to bring as much as possible of the physical world into the digital one. This is exactly what the example above of the airline travel described.
We may thus expect that, in the years to come, the digitalisation of the world will be even more promoted. Indeed, we saw previously the interest various stakeholders have in further developing and making operational and profitable AI systems, notably involving DL (see part 3 of ★ Sensor and Actuator (4): Artificial Intelligence, the Long March towards Advanced Robots and Geopolitics). Thus, these actors are highly likely to turn human beings into actuators, while also reducing as much as possible the need for actuators bridging the digital to physical world, in a two-pronged strategy.
The digitalisation of the world becomes a dematerialisation with which human beings have to find ways to interact.
Welcome to the Matrix
An extreme evolution would be to further develop what is called virtual reality, thus bringing ever further human beings within the world of AI-agents. In that case, actuators would be turned upside down. They would not be any more devices actings as bridges from the digital world to the physical one and allowing AI-agents to output in the physical world. They would be device bridging the physical world into the digital one, thus similar to sensors, and bringing human beings along into the world of AI-agents.
Welcome to the Matrix!
The device could be external, as for example with the famous headsets (e.g. “The Best VR Headsets for 2019“, PC Magazine) or with Google glasses (latest generation for businesses, released on 20 May 2019). They could even be implanted within human beings. They could be a mix between both, as with AlterEgo, “a non-invasive, wearable, peripheral neural interface that allows humans to converse in natural language with machines, artificial intelligence assistants, services, and other people without any voice…The feedback to the user is given through audio, via bone conduction.”…The sensors “captures peripheral neural signals when internal speech articulators are volitionally and neurologically activated” (AlterEgo website; see also Lauren Golembiewski, “How Wearable AI Will Amplify Human Intelligence“, HBR, 30 April 2019).
TED2019 | April 2019
The dematerialisation of the world up to virtual reality and the inversion of actuators, as well as before that stage the transformation of human beings into actuators, has crucial impacts for the armed forces, because the nature of their possible targets change. As a result the ends, ways and means of attack and defence also need to change correspondingly. Yet, as explained below, we must not either overstate changes. Considering the time needed to develop new weapon systems and armaments, it is crucial to anticipate such evolutions.
The impossible total dematerialisation of the world and vulnerabilities
Let us now look at these sequences schematically but as a whole, as a system, with the diagram below.
Artificial Intelligence, Digitalisation and Dematerialisation of the World
There is no such thing as a solely digital world
Because we, as human beings, live in the real world and are physical beings, then, at one stage or another, even what appeared initially as taking place only in the digital world will have to be translated into the physical one. No matter how much dematerialisation will take place, there will have to be bridges with the physical world.
No matter how much dematerialisation will take place, there will have to be bridges with the physical world.
Thus, actually, the proper way to look at the issue from a systemic point of view is not to envision two types of sequences, digital-digital on the one hand, and digital-physical on the other hand, the two being separated.
What we have is always a unique sequence that, in terms of worlds or environments is physical-digital-digital-physical. If the digital part is equal to zero, then we find back classical physical interactions. But we cannot remove in any case the two physical extremities, even though we thought we were simply in a digital-digital sequence.
Even in the extreme case of a widespread virtual reality, human beings would still need to see their basic needs met, such as food and drink, as indeed portrayed in the films The Matrix. Their emotional and cognitive process would have to be kept healthy as in Total Recall. Meanwhile the digital system would need to function.
Energy, the physical hidden component of digitalisation
Indeed, however hidden, the dematerialisation of society comes always with a fundamental bridge or link to the physical or material world. This link is the use of the most basic fundamental resource of the physical world, energy, as Thomas Homer Dixon so insightfully highlighted (The Upside of down, catastrophe, creativity and the renewal of civilization, 2006).
In this framework, Janine Morley, Kelly Widdicks, and Mike Hazas examine “the phenomenal growth in Internet traffic, as a trend with important implications for energy demand” (“Digitalisation, energy and data demand: The impact of Internet traffic on overall and peak electricity consumption”, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 38, April 2018, Pages 128-137, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.01.018). Calling for an agenda to better understand and then mitigate “the most problematic projections of Internet energy use”, they also highlight the large energy use the Internet and thus digitalisation imply, even though various scenarios remain possible considering uncertainty. For example:
“Most estimates of ICT-related energy consumption also predict steady growth. For instance, Van Heddeghem et al. estimate that the electricity consumed by digital devices and infrastructures is growing faster (at 7% per year) than global electricity demand itself (at 3% per year), with the rate of growth of networks highest of all (at 10.4%). Andrae and Edler, also anticipating a compound rate of growth of 7% per year, calculate that the production and operation of ICT will rise to 21% of global electricity consumption by 2030: this is an absolute rise to 8000 TWh, from a base of around 2000 TWh in 2010. In a worst case scenario, this could reach as high as 50% of global electricity use by 2030, but only 8% in the best case.”
W. Van Heddeghem, S. Lambert, B. Lannoo, et al. “Trends in worldwide ICT electricity consumption from 2007 to 2012”, Comput. Commun., 50 (2014), pp. 64-76A and Andrae, T. Edler, “On global electricity usage of communication technology: trends to 2030”, Challenges, 6 (2015), p. 117, quoted by Morley, Widdicks, and Hazas.
If efforts at energy efficiency exist, they have been, so far, unable to offset the growth in energy usage (Ibid.).
The IT companies, climate change-related disasters and responsibility
Needless to say, the impact in terms of climate change and then multiple related adverse effects are similarly important.
Could Microsoft’s move show not only full awareness of their heavy energy footprint but also of their participation in global climate-change related disasters?
As a further signal of this heavy energy footprint, with adverse climate-change-related impacts, “Microsoft has joined a conservative-led group that demands fossil fuel companies be granted legal immunity from attempts to claw back damages from the climate change they helped cause”… It thus “become[s] the first technology company to join the CLC [Climate Leadership Council], which includes oil giants BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips among its founding members.” (Oliver Milman, “Microsoft joins group seeking to kill off historic climate change lawsuits“, The Guardian, 1 May 2019). Besides emphasising how much we have to take “corporate communication” with a pinch of salt, could Microsoft’s move show not only full awareness of their heavy energy footprint but also of their participation in global climate-change related disasters?
Users’ countries pay the bill, systemic threats and a strategic twist
Users’ countries and systemic threats
Furthermore, Morley, Widdicks, and Hazas, highlights a crucial point:
“If accurate [the studies], this suggests that the bulk of energy consumption in Internet infrastructures takes place in the country of use.”
As a result, in the same dynamic, first the population (be it citizens or businesses) of countries using AI-systems are turned into actuators. Second, they see their world dematerialised and have to find ways to cope with it. Third, when they can, they also have to invest in expensive equipments if they want to avoid being completely “robotised”. Fourth, they also have to pay for upfront and hidden energy cost and their aftermath, through their energy bill and through their taxes.
Obviously the consequences for a state and its population are very different whether a country is a producer of dematerialisation and AI or a consumer thereof. The position in terms of leadership and race to AI and computing, thus in terms of influence as well as market share also matters. Those ahead of the race and the most influential develop a power over the others that is immense and multi-dimensional.
For the other countries, only strong political authorities, aware of the challenges faced, may hope to tackle such systemic threat to a whole population.
As a result, considering the heavy American supremacy in the matter, and the enormous Chinese efforts to become leader in that field, the confrontation of the two countries becomes even more of a logical outcome, not to say inevitable. Meanwhile, other countries, if they can, would better wake up rather sooner than later, with a whole array of responses, if they do not want to pay an extremely heavy price.
A strategic twist
In an interesting strategic twist, energy dependency on the one hand, human dependency on the other, for the whole system, could well be the keys less influential countries may play.
In other words, as a first type of responses, concerned political authorities could seek to educate a population not to fall prey to the worse cognitive impacts of “being turned into actuators”.
Second, actors could develop a range of actions, tools and weapons aimed at threatening the energy usage of the purveyors of the dematerialised world and of AI-agents. They could then use the very existence of these device as a preemptive insurance to make sure the dematerialising and AI suppliers do not go against their population, or behave in a way that would have adverse consequences for population and country. In case of need, such as a declared war, actions against energy, the bridge between the digital and the physical world, could make the whole digital edifice of the enemy crumble.
Finally, from a defensive and security perspective both human beings and the “energy bridge” must be secured in priority. This means also acting to make sure that climate change and its impacts, as well as energy depletion, do not finally destroy those that contributed to the spread of these existential threats for the Earth living species.
Featured image: Samsung’s Virtual Reality MWC 2016 Press Conference, by Maurizio Pesce from Milan, Italia [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons.
2018 and 2019 are scientific and geopolitical turning point for the warming Arctic region. Since 2013, Chinese cargo convoys have used the Russian Northern Sea Route increases (Atle Staalesen, “A Chinese-built Arctic tanker tests spring ice along remote Russian coast », The Independent Barents Observer, May 07,2019). In effect, the rapid warming of the region transforms this passage into a navigable space (Atle Staalesen, “The warmest ever winter on the Northern Sea Route”, The Independent Barents Observer, March 28, 2019).
In the meantime, the Russian political, economic, and military authorities have launched a massive program of infrastructure, maritime and defence development of this 4500 km long area, linking the Bering Strait to the Russian-Norway frontier (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).
America is Back (in the Arctic)
Finally, on 6 May 2019, the U.S secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out after the presence and politics of Russia and China in the Arctic:
“We’re concerned about Russia’s claim over the international waters of the Northern Sea Route, including its newly announced plans to connect it with China’s Maritime Silk Road.”
The U.S.- China confrontation is not “only” about the US trade deficit, but also about power politics in a warming and changing world.
In other terms, the warming of the Arctic transforms this region into the new frontier of a new driver of the confrontation between the US and China. It reveals that this confrontation is not “only” about the US trade deficit, but that it is also about power politics in a warming and changing world.
1. Three great powers in a warming Arctic
The economic development of the Russian Arctic was also an important topic during the second Belt and Road Forum, held in Beijing from 25 to 27 April 2019. There, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin exchanged about the necessary Chinese and Asian investments for the next phase of development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) (Atle Staalesen, “Putin steps up talk with Beijing over Arctic Shipping”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 30, 2019).
Towards the Sino-Russian “polar silk road”?
Moreover, Vladimir Putin took the project to the next level, when he said that the Northern Sea Route could become part of the Chinese Maritime Belt and Road initiative. This would imply major Chinese investments, in order to further develop the logistical and especially transhipment capabilities along the Siberian coast (Staalesen, ibid).
A few days later, on 10 April 2019, in Saint Petersburg, the Russian development of the warming Arctic was a central topic discussed during the “Arctic forum – A territory of dialogue”. The main event of the forum was a roundtable gathering the four Arctic heads of government of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland, hosted by President Vladimir Putin. The summit attracted more than 4000 people.
The roundtable between the five national leaders was focused on the development of better political and trade relationships (Atle Staalesen, “ A united Nordic front sits down with Putin”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 10, 2019.
This was deemed necessary after the four years of difficult relations that followed the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
From Finland, with not so much love
As it
happens, one month later, on 7 May, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
addressed the participants to the Arctic Council in Finland, the international
body of all the nations of the Arctic region. During his speech, he declared
that:
“The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance, … It houses 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 per cent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore… Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade, … This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days … Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals”.
However,
Mike Pompeo also focused his declaration on the strategic threat coming from
Russia and China. After denouncing the threat of Chinese submarines in the
Arctic, he added:
“Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims? »
Mike Pompeo from Anslen, ibid.
This remark reveals how the Arctic, which has been a “lost frontier” of American geopolitics during decades, is now becoming an attractor for the U.S. strategy. This happens through the powerful combination of the region geophysical destabilization and of the Chinese maritime, commercial and political presence there (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Arctic: the US lost frontier?”, The Red (Team) Analysis, July 14, 2014).
2. Traders and soldiers at the end of the ice
NATO in the
cold
It must be noted that the remarks of Secretary Pompeo are following the first NATO Arctic manoeuvres, called “Trident Juncture 2018”. These manoeuvres mobilised 50.000 soldiers, 150 planes, 10.000 land vehicles and 60 warships (Christopher Woody, “The US Navy is pushing north, closer to Russia in freezing conditions — and it’s planning on hanging around up there“, Business Insider, 7 November 2018. They were centred on Norway and Iceland, where landing, deployment and combat exercises took place.
They were conducted to demonstrate the Reaction Capability against a hypothetical and unnamed adversary that would endanger a fellow NATO member in the Arctic region. This official “anonymousness” did not stop Russia to protest officially against this military exercise taking place very close to its land and maritime frontiers (Christopher Woody, “Russia aims its missile drills shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO’s biggest war games in years”, Business Insider, 31 October, 2018).
As it happens, in military and geo-economic terms, Trident Juncture could very well be understood as a “statement”. It “expresses” or “reminds of” the potential capability of NATO to “block » the North Atlantic end of the Northern Sea Route.
This “duel with
three stake holders” redraws the maps of globalization. It is especially
true given the rise of the economic and military convergence of Russia and
China.
The Russian
warming Arctic, an Asian attractor
The warming of the
Russian Arctic is having gigantic geopolitical and business consequences,
because the very effects of climate change are turned into an engine of the
Russian power of attraction (Joe Romm, “Arctic
Death Spiral Update: What Happens in the Arctic Affects Everywhere Else“, Think Progress, May 3, 2016). For example, the Russian
energy company Novatek is building the enormous Yamal LNG plant, aiming at
producing more than 16,5 millions of tons of LNG annually (Oksana Kobzeva, “Russia’s
Yamal LNG is on track and on budget, says Novatek”, Reuters, September 5, 2016).
Meanwhile, China also develops off-shore oil and gas operations in the Russian economic exclusive through cooperation with Russian companies (Atle Staalesen, “China’s Oil Company Looks at Russian Arctic LNG”, The Independent Barents Observer, June 14, 2018) . In the same time, it builds a fleet of icebreakers in order to open the “Polar Silk Road”.
Thanks to the powerful attraction exerted by the Russian strategic combination of the Arctic oil and gas extraction operations with the development of the Northern Sea Route, its continental integration is felt throughout Asia. This attraction operates on public and private actors across energy, shipping, railroad and other business sectors. Some of the major investors are from China, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).
3. From the trade war to the war of the cold?
Toward a cold
trade war?
In other words, Mike Pompeo transposes in the Arctic region the tensions that are arising between the U.S. and China since the start of the trade war in March 2018, when the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on 50 to 60 billions worth of Chinese goods. It was followed by new tariffs on 200 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods in September 2018. And a new hike of 25% on Chinese goods could follow in May 2019 (Topic “US China Trade war”, The South China Morning Post).
The rise of neo-mercantilism
However, this transposition of the trade war in the Arctic is not “simply” about tariffs. It is also about the deployment of the Chinese commercial and potentially military sea power throughout the Arctic. From there, it also “flows” into the Atlantic American and European region. From a geopolitical point of view, this means that the U.S. are aware that China may try to compensate the effects of the U.S. trade war. And this attempt could take place through the growth of its trade relations with Europe through the Russian NSR.
Towards hot sea
/ cold sea theatre of operations?
In other words, the warming Arctic is expanding the confrontation between the U.S. and China to the Arctic. The comparison made by Secretary Pompeo between the Arctic region and the South China Sea is important.
Linking the South China Sea to the warming Arctic
In effect, it highlights that the U.S. could potentially expand their own sea power towards the Norway Sea and the Arctic Ocean. This may happen in a way that is similar to the installation of U.S. Sea Power in the South China Sea since the Second World War. As it happens, the ships of the Seventh Fleet are regularly claiming the U.S. right to navigate this very contested sea, especially between Japan and China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Chinese New Silk Road part 1 – The South China Sea”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, March 13, 2017).
This is nothing but an escalation from a “trade war” to a “cold war” in a warming region. It also means that U.S. and China power relationships are now linking the trade tariffs, the South China Sea and the Arctic region. This process opens a planetary landscape for numerous experiments in neo-mercantilism and hybrid forms of an escalating confrontation between the U.S. and China.
Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping at G20, July 8, 2017 – The White House [Public Domain]
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