The Future of Iran’s Regional Role – A Historical Backgrounder

During the second decade of the 21^st century, the Middle East has been characterised by multiple, interconnected crises. The seemingly endless wars in Syria and Yemen, the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian question, the rift between Qatar and the other Gulf countries (chiefly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), political uncertainty in Lebanon and socio-political tensions continuously threatening to tear Iraq apart appear to also have a common denominator: Iran’s role in local politics and regional geopolitics.

Over the last years, Teheran has strengthened its role in the region giving crucial support to President Bashar al-Assad’s war efforts, helping the Houthis in Yemen and providing support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip (Anna Edgerton, Iran Sanctions Over Support for Hezbollah Pass U.S. House, Bloomberg, 25 October 2017; Kay Armin Serjoie, One Result of the Gaza Conflict: Iran and Hamas Are Back Together, Time, 19 August 2014). The objective of establishing a “Shia crescent” stretching from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea is at hand (Carlo Muñoz, Iran nears completion of “Shiite Crescent” across Middle East; land bridge to pose U.S. challenges, The Washington Times, 5 December 2017).

These developments cause great concern in Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Washington and are one of the reasons why U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) signed by the Obama administration with the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran itself in order to make sure that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, U.S. Department of State; Roula Khalaf, Benjamin Netanyahu is bending Donald Trump’s ear on Iran, The Financial Times, 2 May 2018). However, it is probable that Trump’s decision will not prevent Teheran to gain leverage in Lebanon and Iraq where elections have been held on May 6 and May 12 respectively, although partial results in Iraq as counted on 14 May, with the surprise rise of nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, probably at odds with both Iran and U.S., could lead to a more complex situation (David Gardner, Trump and Netanyahu miss the real threats posed by Iran, Financial Times, 1 May 2018; Jane Arraf, “Ahead Of Iraq’s Elections, Muqtada Al-Sadr Reinvents Himself — Again“, 3 April 2018, NPR Parallels; Ahmed Aboulenein, “Firebrand cleric Sadr on course to win Iraq election”, 13 May 2018, Reuters).

The geopolitical tensions between Iran on the one hand and Israel (D. Wainer, D. Abu-Nasr, H. Meyer, Israel Sees Iran War Looming as Mideast Tinderbox Awaits a Spark, Bloomberg, 3 May 2018), Saudi Arabia and Middle-Eastern allies and the United States on the other, together with the economic challenges that the Islamic Republic has to face, lead us to wonder about the regional role that Teheran will have in the medium-term future (i. e. 3 to 5 years). Answering this question is pivotal if we want to have an idea about the future of such an important region as the Middle East. For this strategic foresight and warning series focused on the future of Iran, notably as a regional player, we shall start analysing Iran’s history and political institutions and then we shall investigate Iran’s relations with leading regional and global powers.

With this first article, we shall therefore start exploring Iran’s history until the Islamic Revolution (1979). In the next article, we shall analyse the last forty years of Iran’s history together with the political institutions ruling the country. Our aim is to single out crucial historical elements that still inform today’s and tomorrow’s dynamics

Home of Empires, Islamisation and Awareness of Greatness

“Iran has a longer history than most countries” (Axworthy 2008). Indeed, Iran, or Persia, as the polity was called abroad up until the 20^th century, has been home to great civilizations and empires.

The Persian Empire, established by Cyrus the Great in the 6^th century BC, stretched at its largest from India to the Mediterranean (R. Schmitt, Achaemenid Dynasty, Encyclopaedia Iranica). Later, the Parthians (whose Empire is considered as the heir of the Persians’ one) effectively blocked the eastward expansion of the Roman Empire, while the Sasanian Empire dominated Central Asia and the Middle East for 400 years, right before the Arab Conquest in 651 AD (A. Shapur Shahbazi, Sasanian Dynasty, Encyclopædia Iranica).

Sassanian Empire 621 A.D by By Keeby101 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This was a turning point in Iran’s history. The Persians/Iranians eventually managed to maintain their language and culture but their traditional religious credo, Zoroastrianism, was supplanted by Islam (History of Iran: Islamic Conquest; Iran Chamber Society). The consequences of this development are obviously felt to this very day as Iran is nowadays an Islamic Republic.

After centuries of instability, the rise of the Safavid dynasty in the 15^th century recreated a unified Iranian state (Shaabazi in V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart 2005: 108). These rulers effectively made Iran a Shia country (Foltz 2015: 74-76).

From the mid-18^th century onwards, after the fall of the Safavids, Iran had to deal with Ottoman, Russian and European meddling in its internal affairs (id.: 80-95). We shall come back to these in the next articles, when we shall deal with Iran’s relations with Turkey, Russia and the Western world

The Pahlavis, the rise of the oil issue and of the importance of being – or not – perceived as subservient to foreigners

In 1925, after the fall of the Qajar dynasty, Iran’s constituent assembly gave power to Reza Pahlavi who became Shah, a title inherited from the Persian Empire tradition and signifying “king of kings” (Oktor Skaervø 2016: 149). The new ruler’s aim was to restore Iran’s past grandeur. Indeed, he wanted “to make the country strong, to develop it so that it could be truly independent, to modernise it so that it could deal with the great powers on an equal basis, to have a strong army to resist foreign interventions and to impose order internally so that, as in other modern countries, the state enjoyed sole control” (Axworthy 2008). To achieve these aims, he followed the example of Atatürk (Foltz 2015: 97), who succeeded in modernising and secularising post-Ottoman Turkey. Reza Shah effectively engaged in widespread state-building, involving the creation of extensive military and bureaucratic apparatuses (Abrahamian 2008: 65-71). Transport infrastructure was also greatly improved (Axworthy 2008).

Military commanders of the Iranian armed forces, government officials and their wives commemorating the abolition of the veil. (1936) – Public Domain

Reza Shah however did not fully succeed in freeing Iran from foreign influence. Oil, what would become the world’s most needed commodity, was now at the heart of the matter. Reza Shah, in fact, “had to accept the continuation of British exploitation of oil in the south, on a basis that, despite yielding significant revenue to the Iranian government, in reality gave only a poor return in proportion to the real value of such an important national resource” (ibid.). In 1928 the Iranian government notified the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP) that the oil concession had to be renegotiated as Iran was only getting 16 per cent of the profits (ibid.). The negotiations were painfully slow. As a consequence, the Shah, annoyed, unilaterally cancelled the concession in 1932. The British reacted by sending additional ships to the Persian Gulf and brought the case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Eventually, a deal was reached, granting Iran only a modest increase as Teheran’s share became 20 per cent of the profits (Ansar 2003: 56-9 in Axworthy 2008). As far as the opposition – composed of “the new intelligentsia — especially from young professionals who had been influenced by the left while studying in France and Germany during the turbulent early 1930s” – was concerned, this humble result, and the fact that the concession was extended up until 1993 “confirmed the suspicion that the shah, despite all his patriotic talk, was in fact beholden to London” (Abrahamian 2008: 96).

Tensions between Iran and the Western powers interested in its oil resources, as well as perceptions of these tensions by various domestic actors, remain at the roots of Iran’s present foreign policy, including considering possible impacts on domestic politics (Ishaan Tharoor, The key moments in the long history of U.S.-Iran tensions, The Washington Post, 2 April 2015).

17 September 1941, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is inaugurated as Shah of Iran – Catherine Legrand, Jacques Legrand: Shah-i Iran. Creative Publishing International (farsi edition), Minnetonka, MN 1999, S. 41. IR/RR – Public Domain

Nevertheless, it was Britain that, together with the Soviet Union, forced the Shah to abdicate in 1941. He was to be replaced by his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who declared he would rule as a constitutional monarch (Axworthy 2008). Two factors are usually given to explain the British and Soviet action: Foltz (2015: 98) suggests that the two foreign powers were concerned by the Shah’s pro-German attitudes, while Axworthy (ibid.) thinks that the British and Soviet action was mainly driven by geostrategic considerations regarding oil routes.

The 1953 coup and the bases for the Islamic Revolution.

In the 1940s, economic hardships and the presence of the Allies in the country further fuelled nationalistic sentiments. The oil concessions conundrum emerged again (ibid.). Indeed, between 1932 and 1950, the British government’s revenues from the Iranian oil industry were nearly twice larger than those collected by Teheran (Ansari 2003: 110 in Axworthy 2008). In the meanwhile, the communist Tudeh party grew in popularity, particularly among the underclasses which was becoming more politicized (Foltz 2015: 100). This political environment paved the way for escalation.

“In March 1951, after failing to reach an agreement with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry” (ibid.). The newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq created the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and ordered it to take control of the AIOC’’s assets. Afterwards, as London “blocked the export of oil from Iran, and lodged a complaint with the United Nations”, Mossadeq appeared before the National Security Council, and, accusing Britain of subversion, broke diplomatic relations and closed down the latter’s consulates as well as embassy” (Abrahamian id.: 117). The British government froze Iran’s assets and dispatched military vessels to the Gulf. Tensions were also exacerbated by the widening rift between the prime minister and the Shah over the electoral system and the control of the army (Abrahamian id.: 117-118).

Mossadeq was eventually removed from power in 1953, after a coup orchestrated by the British SIS and the CIA (Axworthy 2008). It was “a joint British–American venture to preserve the international oil cartel” (Abrahamian id.: 118). Indeed, from a British point of view, the interests the AIOC had in Iran were too important: in Abadan the AIOC had the world’s largest refinery; the AIOC was the second largest exporter of crude petroleum and was attributed the third largest oil reserves (ibid.). The concessions over Iran’s oil reserves “provided the British Treasury with £24 million in taxes and £92 million in foreign exchange; supplied the British navy with 85 percent of its need in fuel and the AIOC with 75 percent of its annual profits” (ibid.). In Washington, the most pressing concern was that Teheran could become an example for other oil-producing countries such as Iraq, Venezuela and Indonesia, inspiring them in shifting the control over the oil business away from Western companies to national governments (Abrahamian id.:119).

After the coup against Mossadeq, the Shah’s regime became increasingly authoritarian, especially in comparison with the pledges the ruler had made at the moment of his ascension to the throne. The CIA helped in establishing a secret police force called the SAVAK (Foltz id.: 102), which also received support from the FBI and the Israeli Mossad and had the power to “censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, even university appointments, and use all means available, including torture and summary executions, to deal with political dissidents” (Abrahamian id.: 126). In the 1970s, Amnesty International would describe the Shah as “one of the worst violators of human rights in the world” (Abrahamian id.: 157).

Meanwhile, the country was progressively “westernized”, as women, for example, were granted the right to vote in elections (Foltz id.: 102) . These developments, were not welcomed by many Iranians as these changes were representing “an unquestioning capitulation to Western superiority” (ibid.).

Cover book of The Regained Glory, a biography of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – 1976 – Public Domain

In 1963, moreover, the Shah launched the so-called White Revolution, which mainly consisted in a land reform and in the promotion of industry (Abrahamian id.: 131-133). Yet, the land that many peasants received was not large enough to sustain them, while some agricultural workers did not receive any land at all and, therefore, “the net result was rural unemployment and an accelerating movement of people from the villages to the cities, especially Tehran, in search of jobs” (Axworthy 2008). These very people would be the “battering rams” of the Islamic Revolution (Abrahamian id.: 156).

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Shah “used state power and programs of modernization to attack the Shia clergy” (Skocpol 1982: 274). These developments and the modernization of the country prompted the reaction of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who began to preach against the Shah’s government because of “its corruption, its neglect of the poor, and its failure to uphold Iran’s sovereignty in its relationship with the US” (Axworthy 2008) and was consequently arrested. This sparked demonstrations that were crushed with violence, leaving hundreds of people dead (Foltz id.: 103). Khomeini was later sent into exile, which actually gave him the opportunity to speak freely against the Shah (Foltz id.: 102). Another move that caused outrage was “the Shah’s extension of diplomatic immunity to all Americans living in Iran”. Khomeini reacted saying that “If an Iranian runs over an American’s dog he will face prosecution . . . but if an American cook runs over the shah [himself], no one can do anything” (ibid.). The 1971 “astronomically expensive” celebrations for the 2500 years of the Iranian monarchy were also taken as a further sign of the Shah’s disregard for its own people by many Iranians (ibid.). These sentiments were exacerbated by the fact that by the 1970s, Iran had one of the world’s most unequal income distribution (International Labor Organization 1972: 6 in Abrahamian 141). The Shah’s centralization policies also upset the bazaar, which was “the center of urban life”, and began to play “an indispensable role in mobilizing and sustaining the core of popular resistance” (Skocpol 1982: 271-272).

In 1973, as a protest against Western support for Israel during the Yom Kippur war, the OPEC declared an embargo on oil sales to the West and therefore the oil price increased dramatically (Foltz 105). As a result, a lot of money was pumped into the Iranian economy: “the economy was overheating, there was too much money chasing too few goods, there were bottlenecks and shortages, and inflation rose sharply—especially on items like housing rent and foodstuffs, and especially in Tehran” (Axworthy 2008). Ordinary consumers were “hit hard by unchecked inflation” and farmers “were devastated by cheap imports of food staples such as wheat” (Foltz id.: 106).

In 1977-78, oil revenues-driven inflation and the subsequent, disastrous deflationary measures that caused unemployment to increase led to numerous mass demonstrations (Axworthy 2008). An anti-Khomeini article published by a government-controlled newspaper contributed to make the situation worse (Abrahamian 158). The protests were repressed in blood, further exacerbating tensions and strengthening the resolution of the opposition to the Shah, who, eventually, was forced to flee the country on January 16, 1979 (Foltz id.: 108-109) while Khomeini returned to Iran on 1 February. The Islamic Republic of Iran was ready to be born.

From this brief journey through Iran’s history until 1979 we can emphasize two main elements. The first concerns Iran’s long history and its legacy that fuels national pride and therefore Teheran’s foreign policy (Zia-Ebrahimi 2016). The second element that we have to keep in mind while analysing Iran’s foreign relations is a sense of grievance caused by foreign interferences that have characterized the country’s modern history. The conflicts with the Ottomans and the Russians will be analysed in greater detail in the next articles. Current relations with the West are shaped by the tensions caused by British-American attempts to control Iran’s oil reserves. The 1953 coup against Mossadeq “is remembered and referenced widely by Iranians, who point to it as a sign of the West’s meddling in Iranian affairs, motivated first and foremost by greed” (Tharoor ibid.). This sentiment has its paramount expression in “Occidentosis: a plague from the West” written by the intellectual Jala Al-I Ahmad published clandestinely in 1962. Finally we shall remember the tight connection between foreign policy and related perception of un-nationalism or subservience to foreign powers, opposition and capacity for political authorities to remain in power.

In the next article, we shall dig deeper into the post-1979 history, trying to highlight further elements that can help us in understanding the regional role that Teheran will play in the medium-term future.

About the author: Leonardo Frisani (MA Paris) focuses currently on challenges to the US Dollar supremacy. Beyond that, his specialisation is in European and Russian history, and his main interests are in geopolitics, macroeconomics, climate change and international energy.

Featured Image: Persian Chess Game by Stux via Pixabay – Public Domain

References

Abrahamian, Ervand (2008) A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Armin Serjole, K., “One Result of the Gaza Conflict: Iran and Hamas Are Back Together”, Time, August 19, 2014.

Axworthy, Michael (2008) Iran: Empire of the Mind: a History from Zoroaster to the Present Day, London: Penguin Books.

Edgerton, A., “Iran Sanctions Over Support for Hezbollah Pass U.S. House”, Bloomberg, October 25, 2017.

Foltz, Richard (2015) Iran in World History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gardner, D,, Trump and Netanyahu miss the real threats posed by Iran, Financial Times, May 1, 2018.

Khalaf, R., “Benjamin Netanyahu is bending Donald Trump’s ear on Iran”, Financial Times, May 2, 2018.

Muñoz, C., “Iran nears completion of “Shiite Crescent” across Middle East; land bridge to pose U.S. challenges”, The Washington Times, December 5, 2017.

Skocpol, T. “Rentier State and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revoution”, Theory and Society, Vol.11, No. 3 (May, 1982), 265-283.

Shahbazi, A. S. (2005), “The History of the Idea of Iran”, in V.S. Curtis and S. Stewart (eds), Birth of the Persian Empire, (London and New York, I.B. Tauris 2005)

Tharoor, I., “The key moments in the long history of U.S.-Iran tensions”, The Washington Post, April 2, 2015.

Wainer, D., Abu-Nasr, D., Meyer, H., Israel Sees Iran War Looming as Mideast Tinderbox Awaits a Spark, Bloomberg, 3 May 2018

Zia-Ebrahimi, R. (2016) The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism, Columbia University Press.

When AI Started Creating AI – Artificial Intelligence and Computing Power

2018 could be the year when the U.S. takes back the lead over China with the most powerful supercomputer in the world. It could be the year when the AI-power war over computing power started.

2017 is the year when Artificial Intelligence started creating Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the year when China overtook the US in the total number of ranked supercomputers and in aggregate computing performance.

All these events are deeply shaping our future … and our present. They are recasting how wars will be and are already waged, while strategy and, indeed, the scope of national security, become considerably extended. They are intimately connected. Understanding why and how is crucial to foresee what is likely to happen and is already happening, and fathom how the emerging AI-world will look like.

This article and following, using concrete examples and cases, will explain how and why AI and computing power are related. They will thus focus on hardware and computing power as a driver, force and stake for AI’s development, in the Deep Learning (DL) AI-subfield. Previously, we identified computing power as one of the six drivers that not only act as forces behind the expansion of AI but also, as such, become stakes in the competition among actors in the race for AI-power (Helene Lavoix, “Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes” The Red Team Analysis Society, 26 March 2018). We looked in detail at the first driver with “Big Data, Driver for Artificial Intelligence… but Not in the Future?” (Helene Lavoix, The Red Team Analysis Society, 16 April 2018)

Here we shall start with latest – and most striking – cases exemplifying the tight relationship that exists between hardware and its computing power and the current exponential development of AI, or more exactly the expansion of DL. Computing power and AI-DL are actually co-evolving. We present two cases of AI-DL creating Neural Nets architectures thus DL: Google’s AutoML project, as well as its impact for example in terms of computer vision applications, and U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) MENNDL (Multinode Evolutionary Neural Networks for Deep Learning), and relate them to the computing power needed. We thus start identifying crucial elements of computing power needed for AI-DL, stress the potential for evolutionary algorithms, as well as point out that we may now be one step closer to an Artificial General Intelligence.

We shall dig deeper in this coevolution with the next articles, understanding better how and why DL and computing power/hardware are related. We shall look more in detail at the impact of this relationship and its coevolution in terms of hardware. We shall thus outline the quickly evolving state of play, and identify further areas that need to be monitored. Meanwhile, as much as possible, we shall explain the technical jargon from TFLOPS to CPU, NPU or TPU, which is not immediately understandable to non-AI and non-IT scientists and specialists, and, yet, which now needs to be understood by political and geopolitical analysts and concerned people. This deep-dive will allow us to understand better the corresponding dynamics emerging from the new AI-world that is being created.

Indeed, we shall explain how the American seven-year ban on Chinese telecommunication company ZTE and other related American actions must be understood as a strategic move in what is part of the AI-power race – i.e. the race for relative power status in the new international distribution of power in the making – and looks increasingly like the first battle of a war for AI-supremacy, as suggested by the U.S. tightening actions against Chinese Huawei (e.g. Li Tao, Celia Chen, Bien Perez, “ZTE may be too big to fail, as it remains the thin end of the wedge in China’s global tech ambition“, SCMP, 21 April 2018; Koh Gui Qing, “Exclusive – U.S. considers tightening grip on China ties to Corporate America“, Reuters, 27 April 2018).

As we foresaw, AI has already started redrawing geopolitics and the international world (see “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning – The New AI-World in the Making” and “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI”).

Starting to envision AI creating AIs

Google’s AutoML, the birth of NASNet and of AmoebaNets

Figure p.16 from Le et Zoph, NEURAL ARCHITECTURE SEARCH WITH REINFORCEMENT LEARNING, arXiv:1611.01578v2 [cs.LG] 15 Feb 2017

In May 2017, Google Brain Team – one of Google’s research lab – announced it had launched “an approach” called AutoML which aimed at “exploring ways to automate the design of machine learning models”, using notably evolutionary algorithms and Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms, i.e. one aspect of DL and thus AI (Quoc Le & Barret Zoph, “Using Machine Learning to Explore Neural Network Architecture“, Google Research Blog, 17 May 2017). They first successfully applied the approach for image recognition and language modeling but with small datasets: “our approach can design models that achieve accuracies on par with state-of-art models designed by machine learning experts (including some on our own team!).” (Ibid.) Then, they tested AutoML for large datasets “such as ImageNet image classification and COCO object detection” (Barret Zoph, Vijay Vasudevan, Jonathon Shlens and Quoc Le, “AutoML for large scale image classification and object detection, Google Research Blog, 2 Nov 2017). As a result, NASNet was born, in various size, which, for image recognition achieved higher accuracy and lower computational costs than other architectures (see Google’s figure on the right hand side). For example, “The large NASNet achieves state-of-the-art accuracy while halving the computational cost of the best reported result on arxiv.org (i.e., SENet)”. [5] The results for object detection were also better than for other architectures (Ibid.).

Photo From Zoph et al., Learning Transferable…

As pointed out by Google’s scientists, NASNet may thus tremendously improve computer vision applications (Ibid.). Considering the importance of computer vision for robotics in general, for Lethal Autonomous Weapon System (LAWS) in particular, being able to use NASNet and NASNet types of architecture, and even more to create better programs may become crucial. Google “open-sourced NASNet for inference on image classification and for object detection” (Ibid.), which should limit – to a point considering the need to also use Google’s platform TensorFlow machine learning framework, as well as the starting war between the US and China over AI (forthcoming) – the possible use of NASNet by one actor and not another. This example, shows that being able to develop and run an “AI that creates AI”, which are better than human-designed AI architectures may prove crucial for the started AI-power race, including in terms of possible future warfare, as well as for AI-governance.

A GPU is a Graphics Processing Unit. It was launched as such by NVIDIA in 1999 and is considered as the crucial component that allowed for the take-off of DL.

A CPU is a Central Processing Unit. It was the norm notably before the advent of GPU and the expansion of DL-AI.

Both microprocessors are built with different architectures with different objectives and functions, e.g. Kevin Krewell, “What’s the Difference Between a CPU and a GPU?” NVIDIA blog, 2009.

If the resulting AI-architectures have “less computational cost” than human-designed ones, what is the computing power necessary for the creating AI? According to Google scientists, “the initial architecture search [utilised for AutoML] used 800 GPUs for 28 days resulting in 22,400 GPU-hours. The method in this paper [NASNet] uses 500 GPUs across 4 days resulting in 2,000 GPU-hours. The former effort used NVIDIA K40 GPUs, whereas the current efforts used faster NVIDIA P100s. Discounting the fact that we use faster hardware, we estimate that the current procedure is roughly about 7× more efficient (Barret Zoph, Vijay Vasudevan, Jonathon Shlens, Quoc V. Le, “Learning Transferable Architectures for Scalable Image Recognition“, Submitted on 21 Jul 2017 (v1), last revised 11 Apr 2018 (this version, v4), arXiv:1707.07012v4 [cs.CV] ).

Image extracted from figure 3, Real et al., Regularized Evolution…

Google Brain Team continues its AutoML efforts at finding thebest way(s) to develop AIs that create AI. Out of an experiment to compare the relative merits of using RL and evolution for architecture search to discover automatically image classifiers was born evolutionary algorithms AmoebaNets: “This is the first time evolutionary algorithms produce state-of-the- art image classifiers” (Esteban Real, Alok Aggarwal, Yanping Huang, Quoc V Le, “Regularized Evolution for Image Classifier Architecture Search“, Submitted on 5 Feb 2018 (v1), last revised 1 Mar 2018 (this version, v3) arXiv:1802.01548v3 [cs.NE]).

A TPU is a Tensor Processing Unit, the Application Specific Integrated Circuit created by Google for AI purposes and launched in May 2016

However, as the scientists point out, “All these experiments took a lot of computation — we used hundreds of GPUs/TPUs for days” (Esteban Real, “Using Evolutionary AutoML to Discover Neural Network Architectures“, Google Research Blog, 15 March 2018). The dedicated evolution experiment “ran on 900 TPUv2 chips for 5 days and trained 27k models total”, while each large-scale experiment “ran on 450 GPUs for approximately 7 days” (Real et al, Ibid., pp 12 & 3).

Hence, computing power is crucial in this new search for DL systems creating other DL systems or AI systems creating AIs. If the result obtained can then reduce the computational cost, it is only because, initially, powerful hardware was available. Yet, however large Google’s computing power dedicated to AutoML, it is not – yet? – on a par with what may happen with supercomputers.

Fast AI-Creator … but only with a Supercomputer

MENNDL – Multinode Evolutionary Neural Networks for Deep Learning

On 28 November 2017, scientists at U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), announced they had developed an evolutionary algorithm “capable of generating custom neural networks” – i.e. artificial intelligence (AI) systems in its Deep Learning guise – “that match or exceed the performance of handcrafted artificial intelligence systems” for application of AI to scientific problems (Jonathan Hines for ORNL, “Scaling Deep Learning for Science“, ORNL, 28 November 2017). These new AI systems are produced in a couple of hours and not in a matter of months as if human beings were making them (Ibid.), or days and weeks as what Google achieved.

FLOPS means Floating Point Operations Per Second.
It is a measure of computer performance.

A teraFLOPS (TFLOPS) represents one million million (10¹²) floating-point operations per second.

A petaFLOPS (PFLOPS) represents 1000 teraFLOPS (TFLOPS).

However, this feat is only possible because MENNDL (Multinode Evolutionary Neural Networks for Deep Learning) – the evolutionary algorithm that “is designed to evaluate, evolve, and optimize neural networks for unique datasets” – is used on ORNL’s Titan computer, a Cray XK7 system. This supercomputer was the most powerful in the world in 2012 (Top500 list, November 2017). In November 2017 it ranked ‘only’ number five, but was still the largest computer in the U.S. (Ibid.): “Its 17.59 petaflops are mainly the result of its NVIDIA K20x GPU accelerators” (Ibid.)

Now, the ORNL should get a new supercomputer, which should be online in late 2018, Summit, a “200-petaflops IBM AC922 supercomputer” (Katie Elyce Jones “Faces of Summit: Preparing to Launch”, ORNL, 1 May 2018). “Summit will deliver more than five times [five to ten times] the computational performance of Titan’s 18,688 nodes, using only approximately 4,600 nodes when it arrives in 2018.” (Summit and Summit FAQ). Each Summit node consists notably “of two IBM Power9 CPUs, six NVIDIA V100 GPUs” (Summit FAQ). This means that we have here the computing power of 9200 IBM Power9 CPUs and 27600 NVIDIA V100 GPUs. For the sake of comparison, Titan has 299,008 CPU Opteron Cores and 18,688 K20X Keplers GPU, i.e. 16 CPU and 1 GPU per node (Titan, ORNL) .

By comparison, China – and the world – most powerful computer, “Sunway TaihuLight, a system developed by China’s National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC), and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi” delivers a performance of 93.01 petaflops (Top500 list, November 2017). It uses 10,649,600 Shenwei-64 CPU Cores (Jack Dongarra, “Report on the Sunway TaihuLight System”, www.netlib.org, June 2016: 14).

In terms of energy, “Titan demonstrated a typical instantaneous consumption of just under 5 million watts (5 Mega Watts or 5MW), or an average of 3.6 million kilowatt-hours per month (3.6MkW/h/m)” (Jeff Gary, “Titan proves to be more energy-efficient than its predecessor“, ORNL, 20 August 2014). The expected energy Peak Power Consumption for Summit is 15MW. Sunway TaihuLight would consume in energy 15,37MW (Top500 list, Sunway TaihuLight). Titan power efficiency is 2, 143 GFlops/watts and ranks as such 105, while Sunwai TaihuLight’s power efficiency is 6,051 GFlops/watts and ranks 20 (The Green500, Nov 2017).

Titan’s computing approaches the exascale, or a million trillion calculations a second (Titan), while Summit should deliver “exascale-level performance for deep learning problems—the equivalent of a billion billion calculations per second”, far improving MENNDL capabilities, while new approaches to AI will become possible (Hines, Ibid.).

The need for and use of immense computing power related to the new successful quest for creating AIs with AI is even clearer when looking at the ORNL MENNDL. Meanwhile, the possibilities that computing power and creating AIs yield together are immense.

At this stage, we wonder how China notably, but also other countries having stated their intention to strongly promote AI in general, AI-governance in particular, such as the U.A.E. (see U.A.E. AI Strategy 2031 – video) are faring in terms of AIs able to create AIs. May smaller countries compete with the U.S. and China in terms of computing power? What does that mean for their AI strategy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-5PkzC2ZI

UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-5PkzC2ZI)

With these two cases, we have identified that we need to add another type of DL, evolutionary algorithms, to the two upon which we have focused so far, i.e. Supervised Learning and Reinforcement Learning. We have also started delineating fundamental computing power elements such as types of processing units, time, number of calculations per seconds, and energy consumption. We shall detail further our understanding of these in relation to AI next.

Finally, considering these new AI systems, we must point out that their very activity, i.e. creation, is one of the elements human beings fear about AI (see Presenting AI). Indeed, creative power is usually vested only in God(s) and in living beings. It may also be seen as a way for the AI to reproduce. This fear we identified was meant to be mainly related to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – a probably distant goal according to scientists – and not to Narrow AI, of which DL is part (Ibid.). Yet, considering the new creative power of DL that is being unleashed, we may now wonder if we are not one step closer to AGI. In turn, this would also mean that computing power (as well as, of course algorithms as the two coevolve) is not only a driver for DL and narrow AI but also for AGI.

Featured image: Graphic regarding Summit the new supercomputer of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Image cropped and merged with another, From Oak Ridge National Laboratory Flickr, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).

Militarizing Artificial Intelligence – China (1)

On 7 March 7 2017, Lieutenant General Liu Guozhi of the Science and Technology Commission of the Central Military Commission stated that “Artificial intelligence … will bring about fundamental changes, and even lead to a profound military revolution.” (Wang Liang et al., “NPC deputy Liu Guozhi: Artificial intelligence will accelerate the process of military transformation“, CNR Military, 7 March 2017). This statement foresaw China’s massive national effort to become the world leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI), launched in July 2017 with the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” (新一代人工智能发展规划) and its 150 billion dollars investment plan (Sarah Hsu, “China is investing heavily into Artificial intelligence, and could soon catch up with US”, Forbes, July 3, 2017). Meanwhile, always in 2017, the Chinese National Engineering Laboratory for Deep Learning Technology was officially established (Meng Jing, “China’s first ‘deep learning lab’ intensifies challenge to US in artificial intelligence race », South China Morning Post, 21 February 2017).

© Sputnik / Sergey Pivovarov – “Just in Time for Christmas: Three Chinese Battle Robots Unveiled in Beijing” – 08.12.2015 – Click to access article

In the meantime, Chinese companies also develop AI-powered robotics on an industrial scale. In other terms, China integrates the development of AI, and, in the same dynamic develops what Hélène Lavoix defines as its “AI-power” and its “AI-governance” (Hélène Lavoix “Artificial intelligence- forces, drivers and stakes” and “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI” and in “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning – The New AI-World in the Making”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, March 26, 2018).

It is against that background that the Chinese militarization of AI takes place: the Chinese military develops rapidly the integration of AI to its air, maritime, land, cyber, and space force projection capabilities. This process is managed through a very close military-civil relationship established between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and civil research-development laboratories and industrial companies (Elsa B. Kania in “The PLA’s trajectory from informatized to “intelligentized” warfare”, The Bridge, June 8, 2017). This militarization of AI leads us to wonder about the consequences of this process, not only in operational terms, but also in terms of strategy and of grand strategy, i.e the level where political, economic and strategic interests intersect.

In the first article of this series, we are going to focus on the way the PLA works at integrating AI to weapons systems. Then, we shall see how this process is integrated into the civil development of AI and robotics through a process of “military-civil fusion”. Then we shall wonder about the strategic meaning of this AI development of the Chinese military.

AI and Chinese weapons systems

The Science and Technology Commission of the Chinese Central Military Commission is leading the research and development effort of the PLA in the unmanned systems field, and especially in “intelligent unmanned systems and systems of systems” (Aleksandra Urman, “Smart killer robots: China’s military future could rest on artificial intelligence”, The Defense post, January 2, 2018). As emphasized by Elsa B. Kania, the Chinese development of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence is closely linked to the civil research and developments and applications of AI (“Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: Chinese Advances in Unmanned Systems and the Military Applications of Artificial Intelligence—the PLA’s Trajectory towards Unmanned, “Intelligentized” Warfare”, The Long Term Strategy Group, February 23, 2017).

For example, in 2016, the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation succeeded in operating a swarm of seventy small-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These UAVs were operated autonomously. In 2017, the same company claimed it had succeeded in launching an intelligent drone swarm, directed by autonomous ground control and ad hoc networks (however, the company didn’t release information about the date and place of this test, see Jon Walker, “Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) – Comparing the USA, Israel and China”, Techemergence, September 1, 2017).

The same dynamic applies to the research-development of “intelligentized missiles”. For example, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CISCA) works on the development of future cruise missiles with a very high level of automation and AI integration (Zhao Lei, “Nation’s next generation of missiles to be highly flexible”, China Daily, 2016-08-19). Command and control could even be exercised in real-time while the tasks and targets of the missiles could be changed while flying. Wang Changqing, Director of the General Design Department of the Third Academy of CISCA emphasizes that

“Artificial intelligence could enable missiles to have advanced capabilities in sensing, decision-making, and execution of missions, including through gaining a degree of “cognition” and the ability to learn… Moreover, our future cruise missiles will have a very high level of artificial intelligence and automation” (Zhao Lei, ibid).

The PLA is also developing and testing other kinds of unmanned vehicles for the army, and the navy, such as reconnaissance drones and unmanned submarine (Stephen Chen, “China’s plan to use artificial intelligence to boost the thinking skills of nuclear submarine commanders“, South China Morning Post, 04 February 2018).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcETgSM_AAY

China's homegrown CH-5 drone holds live-fire drill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcETgSM_AAY)

Meanwhile, the militarization of AI is studied for its potential in cyberspace operations. This thinking is done by the Strategic Support Force, dedicated to electronic warfare, in order to use drones equipped with sensors to capture electronic signals and to support electronic warfare missions (William Carter, “Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities “Chinese Advances in Emerging Technologies and their Implications for U.S. National Security””, CSIS, January 9, 2018).

The emphasis on autonomy is a crucial issue for the development of military unmanned vehicles and weapon systems, because of the complexity and potential dangerousness of the environment where they may have to operate. It must be remembered that, by now, these missions would cover the areas of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, data links, and sensors for data harvesting (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Chinese Chinese-Russian robot and space cooperation (1)- China”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, January 8, 2018).

The AI-robotics civil-military fusion

These developments are closely linked to the progress that are made in civil research, especially in the way AI-endowed robots can execute tasks of a growing complexity, (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Chinese artificial intelligence revolution”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 13, 2017). China, besides U.S. private companies, is at the forefront of the twin dynamics of robots and artificial intelligence development (Ma Si “Smartening the world with robots”, China Daily, 2017-09-25).

Meet Jueying, a cute robot developed by Zhejiang University: Jueying is 1 meter long and can carry a 20 kg load and walk at 6 km per hour in different conditions. It will be used in security tasks and disaster relief. pic.twitter.com/qfwPPe7gYE

— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) February 11, 2018

The mammoth progress made in the AI-robotics field is driving the Chinese “civil-military fusion”led by the PLA and by the Chinese Government through the personal involvement of President Xi Jinping, which massively supports the integration of AI by the Chinese military (“China’s Xi calls for closer civil-military integration to boost army combativeness“, Xinhuanet, 2015-03-12). The “civil-military fusion” allows the Chinese military to benefit from the developments accompanying the dynamics allying robotics and AI (Lorand Laskai, “Civil-Military Fusion and the PLA’s Pursuit of Dominance in Emerging Technologies », The JamesTown Foundation, April 9, 2018).

This dynamics has been officially defined by the government in the “Made in China” report of 2015, which states the national political will to turn China into the international leader in, among others, electric/smart car, information technology, aerospace equipment, agriculture machinery, which are all related to AI and robotics, actually considered as a sub-field of AI (“Made in China 2025” Plan, The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, May 19, 2015 and Jean-Michel Valantin, “China: Towards the digital ecological revolution?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 22, 2017; Helene Lavoix, “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI“, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, 27 Nov 2017 ).

This policy supports giant partnerships as well as mergers and acquisitions between Chinese companies and leading foreign companies. For example, the mammoth Chinese robotics company Midea has now acquired the German giant of industrial robotics Kuka (Li Xuena, Wang Cixin, Zhang Boling, “China’s factories are building a robot nation”, ChinaFile, March 10, 2015). In other terms, by developing literally a robot workforce coordinated by multiple levels of AI, China installs itself at the vanguard of “intelligent” industrial productivity on a global scale (Jane Perlez, Paul Mozur, Jonathan Ansfield, “China’s technology could upset the global trade order”, The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2017). In 2017 only, China produced more than 120 000 robots (“China produces more than 100 000 industrial robots in first ten months”, Global Times, 2017/12/13). These developments are “channelled” in order to drive both the civil and military integration of AI and technology transfers from civil developments to the military (“Military-Civil Integration Development Committee Established”, Xinhua, January 23, 2017, http://news.xinhuanet.com/finance/2017-01/23/c_129458492.htm).

Clausewitz and the “intelligentization” of the People’s Liberation Army

The development of the links between AI and robots, among them drones, and weapons systems is not limited to the integration of these unmanned and “intelligent” systems in the arsenal of the PLA. The PLA thinks about the way the militarization of AI could lead to what Lieutenant General Liu Guozhi qualifies as “entering into the intelligentization era” for the PLA (Elsa B. Kania, Battlefield Singularity: Artificial Intelligence, Military Revolution, and China’s Future Military Power, Center for a New American Security, November 2017).

As a result, it is highly likely that the PLA studies closely the strategic potential that could emerge out of the integration of AI at all levels of the military, as well as to the conduct of war operations. In other terms, integrating AI could trigger a transformation of the PLA, from the current “informatized” warfare, based on the circulation of information throughout informatized networks, to “intelligentized” warfare operations. The latter would imply managing operations by AI-led air, ground and sea vehicles, by AI-led entire units, as well as by AI cyber warfare units (Kania, “The PLA’s trajectory from informatized to “intelligentized” warfare”, The Bridge, June 8, 2017).

However, these capabilities are specific to the tactical level. It is possible that the PLA is also thinking about the way AI could also be integrated into its Command and Control capabilities. This is signaled by some articles written by Chinese officers and researchers (Elsa B. Kania, Battlefield Singularity: Artificial Intelligence, Military Revolution, and China’s Future Military Power, Center for a New American Security, November 2017). This integration of AI at this level of command could be a powerful support for joint coordination and decision-making process. The linkage between these different AI’s military levels could thus turn AI and AI-powered technology into a new way to manage the strategic level of operations management of an entire theatre of operations (Edward Luttwak, Strategy, the logic of war and Peace, 1987).

Building upon Hélène Lavoix’s idea of “AI-power”, this possible evolution of the Chinese military leads us to suggest that the PLA is currently developing its own “AI-firepower”. This new Chinese “AI-firepower” must be understood not only in military and tactical terms, but also in strategic terms. In this regard, Carl von Clausewitz defines the role of the military as a tool to wage war and establishes that “War … is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will” (Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book 1, chapter 1, 1 832, Penguin Classics, London, p.101). As such, war is a duel of wills through the exertion of coercion, that can be imposed under the numerous forms of the military capabilities.

Thus, from a Clausewitzian point of view, AI could dramatically increase the coercion capability of the application of the Chinese military and political will through the enhanced capacity of physical, electronic and information military violence that it could muster and project on its opponents. In other words, through the intelligentization of the Chinese military, Chinese “AI firepower”could become an “extension” and an enhancer of the Chinese political will, and thus fully participate in the novelty of “AI governance”, as defined by Hélène Lavoix, and of the Chinese geopolitical power (Hélène Lavoix, “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI” (open access), The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 27, 2017).

If we use the Clausewitzian perspective, it appears that the way the PLA considers the integration of AI to its capabilities, and possibly to its operations, could turn AI into a force, rapidity and precision multiplier, which would thus be applied to what is today an enormous and growing military apparatus (Gavin Fernando, “China is ramping up its military spending to 224 billion per year”, News.com, March 6, 2018). This military evolution is taking place in the physical as well as in the cyber world.

With the next article, we shall look at the implications of this intelligentization process in terms of Chinese grand strategy and geopolitics, and what this means for the newly emerging AI-world (Hélène Lavoix, “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 27, 2017).

Featured image: General view of the pit n°1 in the museum of Xi’an, Terracotta Warriors, by StormyDog101, Public Domain, PixaBay

About the author: Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris) leads the Environment and Geopolitics Department of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. He is specialised in strategic studies and defence sociology with a focus on environmental geostrategy.

★ Big Data, Driver for Artificial Intelligence… but Not in the Future?

On 10 and 11 April 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook went through a two-day congressional testimony in the U.S. (Cecilia Kang et al., “Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: Day 2 Brings Tougher Questioning“, The New York Times, 11 April 2018).

The questioning followed the scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis consulting company, over the improper use of private data shared, without their owners’ consent, by the social network with the consulting firm. Cambridge Analytica then utilised the data notably for psychological profiling (e.g. BBC News, “Facebook scandal ‘hit 87 million users‘”, 4 April 2018; Brian X. Chen, “I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes.” The New York Times, 11 April 2018). Here, the private data, ranging from contacts to travels or eating habits, through estimated beliefs, of up to 87 million users were shared and used. Considering the quantity of data involved, we are dealing with what has come to be known as Big Data, and which existence and use both scare and fascinate people, even more so when Big Data is associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

In this article we shall dwell more in detail into these “Big Data”, focusing on their role as a crucial driver and force behind the current exponential development of AI, or more exactly behind the expansion of Deep Learning (DL), a sub-field of AI. Previously, we identified “Big Data” as one of the six drivers that not only act as forces behind the expansion of AI but also, as such, become stakes in the AI competition among actors in the race for AI-power (Helene Lavoix, “Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes” The Red (Team) Analysis Society, 26 March 2018).

We shall first explain why Big Data is a driver for a sub-field of Deep Learning. Supervised Learning. We shall then dive into the characteristics of these Big Data as needed for AI to understand better our driver. This will notably allow us to start envisioning the impacts and the stakes at work in the new emerging AI world, and show how a driver – Big Data – may also become a stake and with which potential geopolitical consequences. Meanwhile two new drivers for AI are identified, namely imagination and this very emerging AI-world we seek to better understand. We shall finally turn to what could well be the new frontier in AI, Reinforcement Learning, which does not need Big Data. Big Data could then be only a temporary driver.

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Conclusion

Thus, Big Data is only a driver for the development and expansion of one sub-field of AI, DL in the SL approach. On the contrary, Big Data is not a driver for what could well be the latest and most advanced development of AI, the approach through RL, apart from the need to pre-train AI-agents, notably when large datasets are not labelled. As far as RL is concerned, we shall thus need to focus on other drivers, notably architecture and algorithms, as identified previously, but also, most probably the capability of humans to understand and describe a problem in terms of sets of rules, which could lead us to identify new drivers and thus forces for AI expansion as well as AI-power, beyond the new drivers identified here, such as imagination or the very emergence of the AI-world.

Featured image by xresch, Pixabay, Public Domain – Cropped.

Scenario The Rise of the Renminbi – Futures of the US Dollar Supremacy

In this article, part of our series on the possible futures of the US dollar supremacy, we focus our attention on the scenario “The Rise of the Renminbi”, which we deem more interesting in the way it would unfold. In the previous article, we highlighted three different main lead scenarios that could potentially describe the developments that will take place in the future, “The Rise of the Renminbi” being one of them. With this series, trying to understand the possible futures of the US dollar supremacy, we analysed the currency functions (medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account) that make the dollar the necessary currency together with the challenges looming over the petrodollar system, the perspective of the renminbi as a leading …

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★ Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes

Here we shall present the drivers and forces behind the current exponential development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Deep Learning, a sub-field of AI, leads this expansion, as we explained in “When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI” (open access) and in “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning – The New AI-World in the Making” (semi-open access/members only).

Because we are seeing emerging an international race to AI-power – i.e. how one ranks in the global relative distribution of power, as probably increasingly determined by AI – on the one hand, the birth of AI-governance and AI-management on the other, as we pointed out previously (The New AI-World in the Making), the current AI drivers are not only forces behind the expansion of AI but also stakes in the AI competition, which we are seeing as increasingly operating. Meanwhile, how this competition is handled, its dynamics, the defeats and victories it will entail will also shape the new AI-world in the making.

The first series of drivers is classically technological, and composed of algorithms, computing power and big data. The second series of drivers is also rather technological and scientific, and composed of a critical uncertainty, the race to quantum supremacy, and of the challenge of “acting outputs”. Needs and Usages is the last driver we identified, but not the least. Each driver and stake will be further examined in detail in following articles.

An adapted version of this article was included in a keynote speech given at the concluding plenary of the 6th European Forum of the fraud and prevention network Reso-Club, focused this year on Digital Identity: New Rights and New Risks.

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Featured image: Cover page of Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2018 [Public Domain].

Space Mining, Artificial Intelligence and Transition?

Is space mining the short and long-term future for energy and industry?

Nowadays, this question is rooted in the rapid development of the industrial, financial, technological and legal apparatus around the idea of mining asteroids. For example, on 6 January 2015, the US President, then Barack Obama, signed the US commercial space launch competitiveness act. This act aims at “spurring private aerospace competitiveness and entrepreneurship” (US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act). It allows US citizens to “engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of “space resources””, including water and minerals. In other terms, this law obviates the 1967 international space law treaty based on the principle of non-appropriation of space bodies. Thus it makes possible to develop private industrial ventures in deep space, through the right of appropriation of the resources that can be found there (K.G. Orphanides, “American companies could soon mine asteroids for profit“, Wired.com, 2015)”.

It must be noted that, since the beginning of the second decade of this century, the mining of resources in space has become a growing industrial project, through the creation of asteroid mining companies, which attract billion of dollars in funding (Helene Lavoix, “Beyond fear of near-Earth objects: mining resources from space?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, February 18, 2013). In the same time, the space mining idea is spreading at the international level. It is of interest to the West private sector as well as for, for example, to the Chinese and Emirati state sector (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The UAE Grand strategy for the future – from Earth to space”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 4, 2016).

The attraction exerted on the mining sector by the concept of asteroid mining is itself driven by the international competition for mineral resources, being progressively depleted (Michael Klare, The Race for What’s Left, 2012). The international movement of energy transition towards more sustainable forms of electricity production necessitates huge amounts of these rare enough minerals (reference?. Furthermore, the current industrial and economic worldwide growth demands more and more minerals, especially in the exponentially growing digital sector. In other terms, space mining could be the basis of the Earth international energy transition and industrial sustainability (David S. Abraham, The elements of power, gadgets, guns, and the struggle for a sustainable future in the rare metal age, 2015).

However, it is necessary for this industrial space revolution to integrate the new capabilities emerging from the artificial intelligence and robotics current revolution: only autonomous robots can accomplish the extremely dangerous and heavy work necessitated for asteroid mining.

Building upon Helene Lavoix seminal article which identified the issue first and put it on the Red (Team) Analysis Society, the first article of this series will look at the drivers of the “space mining” race, from a space industry point of view. It will point out that the new imperatives emerging from the energy transition and the digital revolution is one of the considerable forces behind space mining. Then, we shall look at the new risk and opportunities arising from space mining.

Identifying the new (space) industrial frontier

On 19 July 2015, the asteroid 2011 UW 158 passed closed by Earth at 1.5 million kilometres away. It was identified as an “X type” asteroid, i.e. a metallic object. According to the Sloosh Community Observatory, this asteroid could be packed with 90 million tons of precious metals, among them platinum. This means that this asteroid contains more platinum than has ever been mined during human history and could have a 300 billion to 5.4 trillion dollars net worth and while this quantity of metal is not injected in the current commodity market (Robert Hackett, “Asteroid passing close to Earth could contain $5.4 trillion of precious metal”, Fortune, July 20, 2015). It must be noted that Planetary Resources has identified this asteroid as being potentially “suitable for mining” (Eric Mack, “Trillion dollar baby” has wanabee space miners salivating”, Forbes, July 19, 2015).

The industrial interest that is so expressed for asteroids is rooted into the new race for minerals, especially the famous “rare earths” generated by the exponential growth of electronic and internet technologies, as well as by the current energy transition towards an expanded energy mix (Guillaume Pitron, La guerre des métaux rares, la face cache de la transition énergétique et numérique, 2018). The rapid and massive development of energy transition, in particular through the rapid growth of photovoltaic industries, especially in Asia, besides the related industrial efforts made by countries like China, India, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Norway, numerous states of the United States, among many others, necessitates huge and growing amounts of those precious minerals (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The United Arab Emirates, The Rise of an industrial sustainable industrial empire”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 13 2016 and David S. Abraham, ibid). The current energy transition is such that in 2040 more than 25% of the global energy production could be produced by the renewable energy sector (Michael Klare, “Go Green young man, young woman”, TomDispatch, Decembre 13, 2015).

The combination of digital growth and energy transition is creating a worldwide system of need for minerals, knowing that the number of terrestrial deposits is limited, even if all of those are not yet exploited. This tension between the perpetually growing and developing humanity and the Earth’s limited resources creates an “international mineral need” that is an economic and political power in itself. In effect, this “need for minerals” is felt as well by countries as by public and private companies, and is driving the development of the whole digital and cyber sector, as well as the aerospace and defence sector and all that activities that depend of it. This convergence of “mineral needs” creates an international nexus of needs and thus a “global need” for minerals that powers the race for mining as well as it drives the political and economic decision that it entails. New actors are emerging in order to answer this need and thus harness its power.

Convergence of the current industrial revolutions

Those actors are leading a deep and rapid transformation of the space sector and of the mining sector, notable through the combination of the two. On the space sector side, a revolution is currently happening in the launching and transport capabilities fields (Monica Grady, “Private companies are launching a new space-here is what to expect”, The Conversation, October 3, 2017).

We witness notably the rapid development of the Chinese public sector combined with the expansion of the Chinese space program, while in the U.S. the evolution takes place not only in the public sector but also in the private space sector, as evidenced by the new Space X created by Elon Musk and Blue Origin, created by arch-billionnaire Jeff Bezos. On the U.S. public side, the NASA, the historic U.S. space agency, is very active to be present in the space-mining field (Karla Lant, “NASA is fast-tracking plans to explore a metal asteroid worth $ 10 000 quadrillion”, Futurism, May 28, 2017).

In the same dynamic, the NASA, is already preparing the Psyche mission that will be composed of the launching of an orbiter satellite around the metal asteroid 16 Psyche, in order to study its composition (Brid Aine-Parnell, “NASA Will Reach Unique Metal Asteroid Worth $10,000 Quadrillion Four Years Early », Forbes, 26 May 2017). The iron and nickel payload of this asteroid could be up to 10 000 quadrillion dollars. If these numbers are primarily a way to express the potential economic interest of asteroids, they also exemplify how the space sector, as well as the solar system is becoming a new kind of industrial attractor. For example, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is composed of hundreds of thousands of asteroids of multiple sizes (Matt Williams, “What is the asteroid belt?“, Universe Today, 23 August, 2015). More than 200 of these are already identified as being potentially exploitable (Suzanne Barton and Hanna Recht, “The massive prize luring miners to the stars”, Bloomberg, 2018). The NASA already targets the Bennu asteroid in order to send a mission to grab some samples of its surface. Thus, the mission will accomplish both a fundamental scientific goal about the understanding of the origins of our solar system and driving the development of the robotics necessitated for asteroid operations (Barton and Recht, ibid).

Towards “intelligent space-mining” and entrepreneurship?

This dynamic towards space mining has driven the creation of companies that are aiming at exploiting asteroids, mainly Planetary Resources-The Asteroid mining company and Deep Space industries (Helene Lavoix, “Beyond fear of near-Earth objects: mining resources from space?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, February 18, 2013). These companies are developing space-mining-based business models for mining the Moon, Mars and the deep space asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

This is creating a technological nexus where the different industrial revolutions taking currently place i.e. the artificial intelligence and the robotic revolution potentially meet mining. Artificial intelligence is currently being integrated to the mining industry, through the use of autonomous robots and a rapid enhancement of captors that allow robots, workers, artificial intelligence and analysts to better analyse the state of their working environment and to optimize extraction and safety (John Walker, “AI in mining – mineral exploration, autonomous drilling, and more”, Tech emergence, December 3, 2017). Some are already calling this trend “intelligent mining” (John Walker, ibid). This evolution of the mining industry is led, for example, by partnerships of artificial intelligence companies as NVIDIA, and IBM and mining companies as Komatsu (Kevin Krewell, “NVIDIA and Komatsu partner on AI-based intelligent equipment for improved safety and efficiency”, Forbes, December 12, 2017).

In the same time, China develops its public space program that aims at installing an autonomous robot base on the Moon, and integrates artificial intelligence development to its space program. The Russian Foundation for advanced studies is developing a robot able to intervene in extreme environments, such as space, while developing a very close space partnership with China (jean-Michel Valantin, “Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Chinese-Russian Robot and Space cooperation – China (1) and « Russia » (2)”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, January 8, 2018).

This dynamic also attracts investors, such as the American high-tech multi-billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel, as we already saw, as well as countries, such as Luxemburg or the United Arab Emirates, i.e. investors and countries with a massive financial leverage capability (Clive Cookson, “Luxemburg boldly goes into asteroid mining”, Financial Times, May 5, 2016). This financial dimension expresses the way investors may consider space mining as having a massive potential for return on investment. It must also be kept in mind that space ventures being dramatically costly and hazardous, the commitment of the financial community is in itself vital, besides being a powerful signal of interest.

These new public and private capabilities are currently being gathered. It must now be seen how these new industrial and financial actors could lead to a displacement of an important part of the world economy towards space.

Featured image: Artist’s impression of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) 70-metric-ton configuration launching to space. – 2014 – NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Scenarios for the Future of the US Dollar Supremacy

With this series, trying to understand the possible futures of the US dollar supremacy, we have analysed the currency functions (medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account) that make the dollar the necessary currency together with the challenges looming over the petrodollar system, the perspective of the renminbi as a leading international currency and the possible impacts of cryptocurrencies over the international monetary system. We shall now outline the main lead scenarios (and eventual sub-scenarios) regarding the future of the US dollar supremacy, out of the corresponding set of scenarios covering the whole range possibilities for the future. In the next article, we shall focus our attention on the scenario we deem more interesting in the way it would …

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The U.A.E. and the Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability Revolution

The United Arab Emirates is shifting rapidly towards the artificial intelligence revolution. This shift is expressed by numerous decisions taken by the highest U.A.E. political authorities. For example, on 16 October 2017, the Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president of the U.A.E. and ruler of Dubai, appointed Omar Bin Sultan al Olama as minister for artificial intelligence (AI) of the Union. This appointment, in itself a world first, was followed up by the publication of the U.A.E. Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (“UAE looks to artificial intelligence to prepare for the future”, The National, October 16, 2017, and “UAE strategy for artificial intelligence”, Governement.ae).

This singular political move is inscribed in the emergence of what Helene Lavoix identifies as “AI Governance”, i.e. the “intersection between AI development and politics” (“When artificial intelligence will power geopolitics – Presenting AI”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 29, 2017). This institutionalisation of the “U.A.E. AI governance” as a key and central component of theU.A.E. grand strategy expresses the way the Emirates are starting to elaborate their development into an AI-driven sustainable power. In other terms, AI is becoming the cornerstone of a new definition of development and power for theU.A.E., in a world of climate change and limited resources.

In a first part, we shall study how AI is going to be used as a driver towards a more sustainable model of development. Second, we shall see how this shift towards sustainability is integrated to the way the Union is already starting to answer its coming oil depletion and its water needs. Finally, we shall see how this move towards artificial intelligence integration is already used to support the U.A.E. grand strategy of becoming a power through its adaptation to new energy and planetary conditions.

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Featured image: Dubai aerial by Nino Verde (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

China and the United Kingdom “Golden Relationship” on the Belt and Road

In 2015, on the eve of his first state visit to the UK, the Chinese President Xi Jinping praised the “visionary and strategic choice” of the British government and its will to build a “golden era” of Sino-British relationships (“Xi Jinping visit: UK-China ties will be lifted to new height”, BBC News, 20 October 2015). The first Chinese freight train for the UK was launched on 1 January 2017; then on 1 May 2017, a cargo train coming from London arrived in in Chinese city of Yiwu, after a “rapid” voyage of 11000 kilometres, which lasted only two weeks (Louise Moon, “China launches freight train to Britain”, The Telegraph, 2 January 2017, and Will Worley, “First direct train from UK to China arrives in north-east town of Yiwu after 7 500 mile journey”, The independent, 2 May 2017). Six months later, on 28 January 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May went to China for a three days state visit, during which the Chinese and British governments signed more than 13 billion dollars agreements, ranging from agriculture to innovative technologies, nuclear projects and clean energy.

These deals were accompanied by declarations from Prime Minister Theresa May and President Xi Jinping regarding the way the UK could become more involved in the Chinese inter continental Belt and Road initiative and in global governance. It must be noted that these official declarations are being supported by major political and finance decisions, rapidly piling up, especially since 2015, when Prime Minister David Cameron declared the start of a “golden age” of China-UK relations (“China Britain” to benefit from “golden era” in ties”, Reuters, October 18, 2015).

In other words, the China-UK relationship is turning Great Britain into a massive “hub” for the Chinese international development, at the very moment when Britain negotiates its “Brexit” with the European Union. In the same dynamic and time line, China, i.e. one of the current major world powers (Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, 2012), is becoming a massive political and economic partner of the UK. This means that a crucial power shift is happening through the new and “golden” relationship between the UK and China, in a time of geopolitical transformations.

In a first part, we shall point out how the principles, ways and means of the Belt and Road initiative are deeply compatible with the way the UK defines its Chinese policy. In a second part, we shall see how and why the UK is developing this “golden relationship”. In a third part, we shall emphasise the massive geopolitical shift implied by this new “China-UK” connection.

The UK long march on the Chinese Belt and Road

Since 2015, the UK is quite pro-active about the Chinese “Belt & Road” initiative. For example, Britain has been among the first countries to become a “founding member” of the China-led Asian Infrastructures and investment Bank (AIIB). It must be remembered that the AIIB is major player of the “Belt & Road” or Chinese New Silk Road, previously known as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) The UK Government announced its intention to join the AIIB in March 2015, and officially joined up on 29 June 2015 (“UK ratifies articles of agreement of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank”, GOV.UK, 3 December 2015).

The AIIB finances or co-finances multinational infrastructures’ development in Asian nations, among these the Kazakh segment of the Western China-Highway-Western Europe (“AIIB and OBOR”, OBOReurope One Belt one Road Europe). These transport infrastructures’ development play a fundamental role in the Chinese “New Silk Road / Belt and Road” initiative (BRI). Thus, the action of the AIIB is deeply complementary to the BRI. In effect, the BRI is an economic and infrastructures strategy aimed at ensuring the constant flow of energy resources, commodities, products, money and data that are necessary to the current industrial and capitalist development and enrichment of the 1,4 billion strong “Middle Kingdom” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road – From oil wells to the moon … and beyond”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, July 6 2015). Since 2013, China has been deploying the NSR/ BRI initiative, which attracts the interest and commitment of numerous Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries.

As we detailed previously, the Belt and Road Initiative is a new expression of the Chinese philosophical and strategic thought (Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015). It is grounded in an understanding of the spatial dimension of China, in the geographic sense, as well as in a comprehension of the different countries that are involved in the deployment of the NSR. Space is conceived as a support to spread Chinese influence and power to the “outside”, but also to allow the Middle Kingdom to “aspirate” what it needs from the “outside” to the “inside” (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014). This is why we qualify some spaces as being “useful” to the deployment of the OBOR, and why each “useful space” is related, and “useful”, to other “useful spaces”.

Thus, the UK, by actively choosing to become part of the BRI, seems to become a fundamental “geographic useful space” for China, while China seems to become a very strong attractor for the UK.

An emerging “Golden Relationship”?

It is interesting to note that, in May 2015, during a visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang in London, the then Prime Minister David Cameron announced that

“Britain is committed to developing relations with China and is willing to become its most open partner”.

Minister Wang answered that

“Both nations could explore new space for growth in the China-Britain comprehensive strategic partnership, and add new momentum to their cooperation in international productivity, global finance, growth and innovation, and global governance and development.”

It is important to note that this exchange encapsulates the main structural economic preoccupation of modern states, i.e. economic growth and development in a global multipolar world (“British PM hails “golden year” in UK-China relations” Xinhuanet, 2015-06-10 and Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing, 2007).

Since this 2015 visit, followed in October 2015 by the state visit of President Xi Jinping in the UK, the two governments launched numerous political initiatives. For example, since the start of December 2017, foreign finance companies are allowed to own up to 51% of local fund managers, securities ventures and brokerages in China, instead of being limited to 49%. In other terms, this decision opens up the Chinese financial market to the City of London, at the moment when UK firms are looking for ways to access new markets after the Brexit, especially given the fact that they could therefore access the very large base of China’s savings (Cecily Liu, “Chinese market will entice UK financial service”, ChinaDaily, 2017-11-26 and Huang Ge, “Opportunities abound in sino-UK economic, trade ties: China Britain Business Club Chief”, Global Times, 2018-1-28). This thematic of an enhanced financial cooperation between the two countries was also central to the exchanges between Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in December 2017 (“Premier Li meet British Chancellor of the Exchequer”, The State Council, The People’s Republic of China, December 16, 2017).

However, the financial side of the “Sino-British golden relationship” is part of the larger picture of the common political project that is woven by both parties. This larger picture integrates developments in the nuclear field, in clean energy, in high-speed train, in high technology trade, which are integrated to the Belt and Road framework (Josh Hallyday, “UK-China relations still “golden”, says PM, as investments talk open”, The Guardian, 10 Nov, 2016). In other terms, the “golden relationship” allows China to develop a strategic relationship with the fifth economic power in the world, furthermore a crucial actor in one of the most geopolitically charged situation in the world: indeed, the UK is both a European power and an Atlantic power, with deep and historical ties in Asia, in particular with China, notably through its past “ownership” of Hong Kong until 1997 (John King Fairbanks, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, 2006).

For the UK, the deployment of the Belt and Road initiative opens a new geo-economic and political landscape. In effect, joining the Belt and Road initiative literally means for Great Britain that it develops deep links with the most important Asian powerhouse, at a moment when world economics are more and more centred in Asia, which is moreover currently leading global growth (“Asia’s dynamic economies continue to lead global growth”, International Monetary Fund, May 9, 2017). This “connection” is constructed through railroad interconnections, the development of financial cooperation, technological exchanges. Furthermore, between today and 2020, this “Golden relationship” could also become a “golden inter-connexion”, given the project of construction of a submarine fibre optic cable of 10 500 km that could, or will, connect Russia, Japan, Russia and Norway and Finland. This trans-Arctic link will be destined to connect with the Baltic and Northern sea submarine fibre optic network that, among others, are connected to the UK. This connection will reinforce data exchanges between Great Britain and china (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Russian Arctic, China’s (digital) development and Northern Europe”, The red (team) Analysis Society, January 29, 2018).

A historical geopolitical shift?

It is difficult not to understand the British expression of a “golden relationship”, coined to qualify the new dimension of the China-UK set of relations, as an allusion to the “special relationship” that has defined the dense, complicated and tangled relations between Britain and the US. The very expression itself – the “special relationship” – was created by Winston Churchill in 1946, during its famous “Iron Curtain Speech”, to salute the way both countries had fought side by side against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, while having a new common enemy, the Soviet Union (Daniel Yergin, Shattered peace: the origins of the Cold war and of the National security state, 1977).

Thus, the new notion of a “golden relationship” expresses a major shift from the British geopolitical history of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, including, more recently, the alliance forged with the US for the “war on terror” and the fight against Islamic terrorist networks as well as for the war in Iraq. It signals Britain’s “pivot” to China, the Middle Kingdom being perceived as the new siege of international power (“Britain eyes closer cooperation with China Belt and Road”, Global Times, 2018/2/1).

Reciprocally, for China, the integration of the UK to the B&R is of a major geopolitical importance, because it allows Chinese firms, among others, for example, to benefit from the financial knowledge, capability and global reach of the City (“Time to shine “Golden era” for China-Britain ties brighter”, Global Times, 2018-1-31). It turns the UK into a “source” of financial resources for China while transforming the B&R into a potential transport, electronic, and political Eurasian loop going from China to “Extreme Europe” up to the North Atlantic.

Thus, the Belt and Road initiative could lead towards an “Asian Britain” and an “Atlantic China”.

The world is shifting.

Featured image: The City of London seen from the south bank of the river Thames in London, United Kingdom, by By 0x010C (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.