Saudi Arabia and the Chinese Belt and Road: the Great Convergence

In February 2019, during the Saudi Arabia-China economic forum, the two countries signed for more than 28 billion dollars deals (“Saudi-Chinese Investment Forum Signs 35 Deals During Crown Prince’s Beijing Visit”, Ashark Al Awsat, 22 February, 2019). These gigantic deals are part of the growing Saudi-China relationship. They are the economic and political continuation of …

Climate change: Shall we live or die on our changing planet ?

A cavity 1000 feet tall (1600 metres), and as large as two thirds of Manhattan has been found inside the Antarctic Thwaites glacier (Sarah Sloat, “An Enormous Cavity Inside an Antarctic Glacier Harbors a Dangerous Threat », Inverse Daily, February 1, 2019). It has been created in three year by inside warming and melting. This shows …

The Quantum Times (Daily Updates)

Horizon scanning on Quantum Information Sciences and technologies and their use. As a result we publish the Quantum Times, a daily scan and news brief on everything related to the emerging Quantum world. The Quantum Times is updated daily before 9:00 ECT. You can access it here Being informed and keeping up with what is …

Quantum Computing, Hollywood and geopolitics

Since 2017, quantum information and technology science (QIS), and especially quantum computing, are quickly emerging as central in Hollywood and its movies, TV series and novels. Their scenarii emphasise the link between quantum power and national security situations. Hollywood and the U.S Strategic Debate This is a crucial indication, considering that the relation between the …

Sensor and Actuator for AI (1): Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality

Beyond hype and hatred, this article focuses on the way Artificial Intelligence (AI) – actually Deep Learning – is integrated in reality, through sensor and actuator.* Operationalisation demands to develop a different way to look at AI. The resulting understanding allows highlighting the importance of sensor and actuator, the twin interface between AI and its …

Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (3): Mapping The Race for Quantum Computing

The purpose of this article is to define a framework within which the Race to Quantum can be understood, to present an adequate tool to handle the multiple characteristics of this race, namely dynamic mapping – for mathematicians dynamic graphs – and to uncover parts of the dynamic map thus achieved as example of what is happening and what can be done to understand. The mapping presented here progressively includes the EU and the Netherlands, Germany, the U.S., China, then, moving to private actors, IBM and Vision Fund. read more…

Understanding (or not) the Nature of Climate Change as a Planetary Threat

On 3 December 2018, i.e. two days before the opening of the 2018 UN Climate Change Conference – its 24th meeting (COP 24), in Katowice, at the very heart of Poland coal country, Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, announced that his country would not organize the following round of negotiations, i.e the COP …

Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics (2): The Quantum Computing Battlefield and the Future

A race has started for quantum technologies or quantum information systems (QIS). Indeed, considering initially and notably the consequences in terms of cryptology – dubbed a “crypto-apocalypse” – no country may allow another state or a foreign company to be the first to develop quantum computing.

However, since the initial worry about cryptology somehow triggered the current quantum revolution, the situation has changed, discoveries have taken place… read more

Assessment of Germany 3 billion euros for Artificial Intelligence – Signal

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

Critical Uncertainty ➚ Possible challenge in the current AI-power race for private and public actors alike – Germany strikes back, but the road ahead is competitive. The possible quantum disruption to AI might be one fruitful strategic choice for Germany, as well as for France and the UK (in a geographical and historical European perspective).

➚➚  Accelerating expansion of AI

➚➚  Accelerating emergence of the AI-world

➚➚ Increased odds to see the quantum technologies impacting AI (and vice versa)
➚➚  
Escalating global AI-power race
➚➚  Rising challenge for the rest of the world to catch up

 Potential for escalating tension between Europe, the U.S. as well as China

[….]

Militarizing the Warming Arctic – The Race to Neo-Mercantilism(s)

The warming Arctic is the stage of an ongoing maritime, geopolitical and geo-economic revolution.

For example, end of August 2018, the Danish Maersk Company, one of the major ship owners in the world and the world’s largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, sent a first container ship using this route, in order to test its commercial use. The ship went from Vladivostok to Saint Petersburg, through the Bering Strait, following the northern coast of Siberia (Tom Embury-Morris, “Container Ship Crosses Arctic Route for First Time in History Due to Melting Sea Ice”, The Independent, 18 September, 2018).

Since 2013, each year, the number the number of Chinese cargo convoys using the Russian Northern Sea Route, also known as the North East passage, increases thanks to the rapid warming of the region, which transforms

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