China's Embrace of Blockchain Has AI Implications

One of the meta-trends of 2019 in technology is China's own development and exportation of its own technological stack.

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China’s blockchain ambitions show that China is better positioned in the 2020s to innovate at the intersection of 5G, blockchain, AI and a centralized digital currency for the RMB.

From blockchain phones by HTC, to the domination of Huawei globally in 5G, the 2020s will mark a new era of technological competition at the Last Futurist we call the cold tech wars. China is liable to normalize surveillance technology with the exportation of industry leading facial recognition systems with emotional reading in real-time predictive analytics implications.

Government agency AI supported by technological firms is a play by the Chinese Government that the U.S. cannot compete with, even as congress is unlikely to break up the likes of Google, Facebook or Amazon anytime soon. But blockchain? They told you it was all hype.

Blockchain is Part of China’s Technological Dynasty Founding Years 2020-2025

In October, 2019 Xi gave a speech saying China needs to “seize the opportunities” presented by blockchain, in what appeared to be one of the first instances of a major world leader backing the tech. China’s ambitions at the intersection of surveillance tech, 5G, AI-as-a-service and blockchain show pillars of a new technological dynasty forming in China.

China is not a newcomer at recognizing the potential of blockchain tech. Blockchain was included in the State Council’s technology blueprint three years ago and some local governments have applied it to administrative work. Now in late 2019, Over 500 blockchain projects have been registered with the government.

After Beijing banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) in September 2017 there’s been a global crypto winter with Bitcoin’s price volatile and pulling down an entire sector, but China can renew it on its own terms. Surveillance tech combined with 5G and blockchain can provide China advantages in how distributed ledger technology is scaled across industries.

Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese government has never stood against blockchain. Experts say China could define the technology if it’s able to take a lead — which could be “dangerous.” Indeed China will transform how surveillance technology combined with blockchain is used and combined into how countries use surveillance on their own citizens, especially in places like Africa, South America and even parts of Europe.

In October, 2019, officials from China’s state bank urged the country’s commercial banks to “step up their application” of blockchain and “embrace digital finance.” China is now poised and well positioned to control the development of the nascent technology in the absence of competition from other regions like Europe and the U.S. Meanwhile companies like ByteDance could be groomed to be providers of AI-as-service mid level services to help export China’s ideology around biometric surveillance and predictive analytics capture.

US President Donald Trump has made few explicit comments about blockchain to date, though in July, he notably tweeted his disapproval of “Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies,” which are underpinned by blockchain. The current President also seems more interested in old-school military than the advancement of AI, which future generations will realize was a huge mistake.

China's integration of blockchain tech into its surveillance tech enhances its AI-system of the future.

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