US intelligence officials have launched a campaign to warn American companies about the risks of interacting with China in critical industries, in a push to make it harder for Beijing to obtain technology and data.
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center wants to raise awareness about the links that Chinese companies have with the government, military and intelligence services. The effort is targeted on five sectors: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, semiconductors and autonomous systems.
Michael Orlando, acting director of the NCSC, a branch of the US intelligence community that focuses on threats from China, said Beijing was “using an array of legal, illegal and quasi-legal” methods to obtain intellectual property and data on American citizens that it would use to try to dominate critical industries.