China’s STI Operations: Monitoring Foreign Science and Technology Through Open Sources

Abstract

Open source intelligence (OSINT) and science and technology intelligence (STI) are realized differently in the United States and China, China putting greater value on both. In the United States’ understanding, OSINT “enables” classified reporting, while in China it is the intelligence of first resort. This contrast extends to STI which has a lower priority in the U.S. system, whereas China and its top leaders personally lavish great attention on STI and rely on it for national decisions. Establishing a “National S&T Analysis Center” within the U.S. government could help to address these challenges.

The PRC’s Efforts Abroad

“…29 A minimum layout would consist of a hub in the Washington Metropolitan Area staffed with 350 full-time employees and four regional outstations (Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Silicon Valley) with staffs of 25-30 each, including administrators, linguists, analysts, data scientists, subject matter experts, IT personnel, and support staff, at an estimated cost of $125M-150M per annum plus facilities. 30…”

Harnessed Lightning: How the Chinese Military is Adopting Artificial Intelligence

“…81 Finally, the PLA is using AI in multisource data fusion for foreign military analysis, including textual analysis of foreign-language documents. 82 In the fall of 2020, the PLAGF awarded two contracts for "foreign military equipment intelligent document data resources"; and in November, an unspecified PLASSF unit ordered a "multilingual intelligent text processing system" from Nanjing Glaucus-Tech Co., Ltd. (Glaucus-Tech; 南京国业科技有限公司). On its website, Glaucus-Tech advertises the "GL-AI Speech Recognition System 001," which can apparently translate foreign languages into Chinese with 80 percent accuracy, at a rate of 20 words every 150 milliseconds.…”