China’s ability to set its own technological course in the face of sustained US export restrictions may be the key factor in the two countries’ contest over artificial intelligence, a prominent analyst has argued. Zheng Yongnian, dean of the school of public policy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), made the case in his preface to The Rise of Atlas, a new book about the development of Huawei Technologies’ Atlas 950 SuperPoD computing system. The system, which Huawei showcased at...

China’s embassy in Wellington has rejected New Zealand’s latest security assessment as the product of “foreign interference” and a “Cold War mentality”, as tension grows in a relationship already strained by geopolitical and security concerns. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s annual threat report identified China as the only country conducting espionage “at scale”. In the Thursday report, the agency’s director general Andrew Hampton described the current threat environment as “the...