US Needs Clearer Standards-Setting Strategy for Emerging Tech, Experts Say

The U.S. needs a clearer strategy for leading 5G and artificial intelligence standards-setting to counter China’s growing tech leadership, technology experts said. The Trump administration should define a strategy and work with allies to set global standards, the experts said, or risk forcing its companies out of global markets because of restrictions placed on China.

“We're behind. I can't say it enough to U.S. legislators,” said Nicol Turner Lee, a Brookings Institution fellow, speaking during a May 8 webinar hosted by the think tank. “That should be disconcerting to companies who will be told by the U.S. that they cannot do business [in China] even though there are other European companies that can.”

At the center of the issue is China’s dominant presence at global standards-setting bodies for emerging technologies, said Sheena Chestnut Greitens, a nonresident Brookings fellow. International bodies are seeing more rules written by Chinese technology companies, she said. “About half of the standards that [China has] proposed have been adopted by the [United Nations] as the global standard,” Greitens said, adding that those standards apply to facial recognition technology. “That's really important.”

U.S. restrictions on Huawei have blocked the U.S. from participating in bodies in which Huawei is a member, although the Commerce Department said it has drafted a rule to address the ability of U.S. companies to participate in 5G bodies (see 2004290047). The rule would be welcomed by the technology industry and help U.S. companies regain footing as standards are developed, the Information Technology Industry Council said. But the ITI said the rule is overdue. “Confusing and unclear U.S. policies have inadvertently caused many U.S. companies to lose their seat at the table to competitors from other countries, namely China,” Naomi Wilson, ITI’s senior Asia policy director, said in a statement. Wilson said it is “critical” that Commerce “address these ambiguities.”

If U.S. companies continue to be restricted from participating, China will likely have an easier path toward controlling certain markets, Lee said. “Whoever gets there first will essentially be the global leader when it comes to standards,” she said. “We need some coherency around what we're actually doing from a public policy front … so we can at least be in the stage where we're still on the field, versus sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out how to catch up.”

Greitens said U.S. leadership at standards-setting bodies is particularly important for surveillance and facial recognition technologies, a high-priority technology for the U.S. The U.S. placed 28 Chinese entities involved in facial recognition and surveillance technology on its Entity List last year, citing their involvement in China’s effort to suppress its Uighur population (see 1910070076). “I think it's really important that the United States have a comprehensive strategy, unless we want Chinese tech companies writing the global rules for how facial recognition is used in policing,” Greitens said. “The United States needs to figure out what it wants the alternatives to look like ... and I think that's pretty urgently needed right now.”