China could gain an advantage over the United States in the technology race and endanger American economic and military supremacy, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has warned.
Speaking in an interview at a Breitbart event focused on artificial intelligence integration, he emphasized that if America does not lead in this field, the situation in the 21st century will unfold according to a very different scenario.
Michael is convinced that technological dominance will determine every country's economic and military weight in this century, and that the winner in the contest between U.S. and Chinese development models will be decided by the AI race itself.
This statement is not just one person's opinion; it factually records what military and tech circles have been whispering about for years. Emil Michael is precisely the official whose office directly deals with military AI applications, so his words carry weight.
Interestingly, he does not explicitly specify which technologies China is gaining an edge in, but it is precisely this ambiguity that is worrying—whether the U.S. is already falling behind existing but classified developments. It remains to be seen whether the Pentagon will take steps in the coming months to accelerate its own AI programs, or whether this is just part of a budget battle between agencies.
