The U.S. Economy, between the Climate Hammer and the Trade War Anvil – the Soybean Case

On 24 September 2018, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce imposed new tariffs on 200 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods, thus widely escalating the “trade war” initiated by president Donald Trump against China in April 2018. Beijing immediately retaliated with tariffs on 60 billions worth of American goods (Will Martin, “China Hits Back at Trump …

Revisiting Timeliness for Strategic Foresight and Warning and Risk Management

[Fully rewritten version v3] To exist, risk and foresight products as well as warnings must be delivered to those who must act upon them, the customers, clients or users. These anticipation analyses must also be actionable, which means that they need to include the right information necessary to see action taken. Yet, if you deliver …

Winning the Race to Exascale Computing – AI, Computing Power and Geopolitics (4)

This article focuses on the race to exascale computing and its multi-dimensional political and geopolitical impacts, a crucial response major actors are implementing in terms of High Performance Computing (HPC) power, notably for the development of their artificial intelligence (AI) systems.  It thus ends for now our series on HPC as driver of and stake for AI, among the five we identified in Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes: the classical big data, HPC and the race to quantum supremacy as related critical uncertainty, algorithms, “sensors and expressors”, and finally needs and usages.

$2 Billion for Next Gen Artificial Intelligence for U.S. Defence – Signal

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

Critical Uncertainty ➚➚➚ Disruption of the current AI-power race for private and public actors alike – The U.S. takes a very serious lead in the race.
➚➚  Accelerating expansion of AI
➚➚  Accelerating emergence of the AI-world
➚➚ Increased odds to see the U.S. consolidating its lead in the AI-power race.
➚➚ Escalating AI-power race notably between the U.S. and China.
➚➚ Rising challenge for the rest of the world to catch up
Potential for escalating tension U.S. – China, including between AI actors […]

Impacts of Chinese Baidu new no-code tool to build AI-programs – Signal

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties ➚➚ Accelerating expansion of AI ➚➚ Accelerating emergence of the AI-world ➚ Redrawing of the power map of the world along AI-power status lines ➚ Escalating AI-power race notably between the U.S. and China. ➚ Rising challenge for the rest of the world to catch up ➚ China  influence and capability in terms …

High Performance Computing Race and Power – Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (3)

This article explores three major challenges actors face when defining and carrying out their policies and answers in terms of high performance computing power (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), considering the political and geopolitical consequences of the feedback relationship linking AI in its Deep Learning component and computing power – hardware – or rather HPC. …

The Warming Ocean as Planetary Threat

This article looks at the way the warming ocean exerts a growing pressure on food security and the economy. It is a follow-up to “The U.S. Navy vs Climate Change Insecurity” (Jean-Michel Valantin, June 15, 2018), where we focused on the current climate and ocean change becoming a major strategic threat, because of the rapid …

Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (2)

This article focuses on the political and geopolitical consequences of the feedback relationship linking Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its Deep Learning component and computing power – hardware – or rather high performance computing power (HPC). It builds on a first part where we explained and detailed this connection. Related Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics …

Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (1)

With this article we shall look more in detail at the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its Deep Learning component, and computing power or hardware, a connection we started exploring with our previous article, “When AI Started Creating AI“. The foundations for understanding the link between AI-Deep Leaning and computing power being laid, the …

The U.S. Navy vs Climate and Ocean Change Insecurity (1)

The U.S. Navy is under higher and growing pressure from climate and ocean change. This situation is emphasized in The Impact of Sea-Level Rise and Climate Change on Department of Defense Installations on Atolls in the Pacific Ocean (Curt D. Storlazzi, Stephen B. Gingerich et al., February 2018, full pdf report), funded among others by the Department …

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