Chinese firm discussed using UK AI tech for military use

A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, writes Hannah Devlin for The Guardian.

Emails obtained through a freedom of information request by the charity UK-China Transparency show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use. The company, which is the leading designer of China’s drone warships, shared this objective with two Imperial employees before signing a £3 million (US$3.8 million) deal with the university in 2019.

Ministers have spent the past year stepping up warnings about the potential security risk posed by academic collaborations with China, with MI5 telling vice-chancellors in April that hostile states are targeting sensitive research that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.
Full report on The Guardian site