The U.S. government gave at least $30 million in federal grants for research led by a scientist who is now at the forefront of China's race to develop the most advanced artificial intelligence—which he compared to the atomic bomb due to its military importance, a Newsweek investigation has revealed.
Pentagon funding for Song-Chun Zhu, the former director of a pioneering AI center at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), continued even as he set up a parallel institute near Wuhan, took a position at a Beijing university whose primary goal is to support Chinese military research, and joined a Chinese Communist Party 'talent plan' whose members are tasked with transferring knowledge and technology to China.Newsweek's revelations underline how the United States, with its open academic environment, has not only been a source for China of advanced technology with military applications but has also actively collaborated with and funded scientists from its main riva