(Credit Image: Pierre Markuse, CC BY 2.0) The global wildfire is engulfing the world. Throughout 2019, immense swaths of Australia, California, Alaska, Russia, central Africa, and the Amazon basin, were part of this immense bonfire. This conflagration took place after the historic fire seasons of 2018, 2017, 2016… (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life …
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The U.S. Army versus a Warming Planet
The strange case of the disappearing report In August 2019, the Centre for Climate and Security published an article about a recent publication by the U.S Army War College. The document, entitled “Implications of Climate change for the U.S Army”, however, cannot be found anymore on the “publications” page of the U.S Army War College. …
Quantum Optimization and the Future of Government
Quantum optimization is a direct practical application for quantum computing. Moreover, actors can already use it, even with the nascent and imperfect quantum computers currently available. The Volkswagen Group, Daimler, Ericsson, Total, Airbus (including with the Airbus Quantum Computing Challenge – AQCC)), Boeing, EDF, are examples of companies with ongoing research projects involving quantum optimization. …
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Foreseeing the Future Quantum-Artificial Intelligence World and Geopolitics
Google has reportedly achieved the famous Quantum Supremacy, as the Financial Times first reported on 20 September 2019.
Despite heated discussions regarding the validity of the claim (e.g. Hacker News), this reminds us that a world with quantum computers is about to be born. All actors need to take this new future into account, in all its dimensions. This is even truer for those concerned with international security at large.
This new series focuses on understanding the coming quantum-AI world. How will this future world look like? What will be the impacts on geopolitics and international security? When will these changes take place…
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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
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 …
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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. …
