Bringing techno-globalism back: a romantically realist reframing of the US-China tech relationship | Jeffrey Ding

Talk of decoupling, an AI arms race, and a tech Cold War abounds. These prominent narratives are rooted in the core assumption of techno-nationalism – that the nation-state is the key unit of analysis for understanding the global technology landscape. Yet, technology advances in a globalizing world. Jeffrey Ding outlines the case for bringing techno-globalism back – not the “end of geography” version, which is an easy target, but a romantically realist version – into debates about the US-China tech relationship. As the China lead for the Centre for the Governance of AI, Jeffrey Ding researches China’s development of AI at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford. His work has been cited in the Washington Post, South China Morning Post, MIT Technology Review, Bloomberg News, Quartz, and other outlets. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he has worked at the U. S. Department of State and the Hong Kong Legislative Council. He is also reading for a D. Phil. in International Relations as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. This talk was taken from EA Global Asia and Pacific 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.