China announces plans to build unmanned police stations run by AI
WHY THIS MATTERS AI will help governments create and deliver new, more efficient services. Used wisely it has the potential to help people save time, but relying too heavily on AI to protect and police populations isn’t without its dangers. The next time a citizen in Wuhan in China...
Chinese researchers have created an IQ test for AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Humans have an inane desire to measure and categorise things, and this includes being able to measure an AI’s level of intelligence, but it’s proving to be a difficult problem to solve. Human intelligence is hard enough to measure, and over the decades today’s...
China splurges $10 Billion to build a national quantum technology research center
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum technologies will transform the world by creating ultra-fast computing platforms, ultra-secure networks, and new forms of radar that will render stealth obsolete, and China wants to dominate the space. This week the Chinese government announced they would be spending upwards of $10 Billion...
China unveils the world’s largest electric vehicle charging network
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF China’s ambitions to embrace renewable energy and electric vehicles shows no signs of slowing down, and they’re leaving other countries in the dust. Last year the US Government announced it was going to start rolling out a huge network of electric charging points across...
World’s first intercontinental Quantum Internet link goes live, hosts video conference
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum communication networks are considered the platinum standard when it comes to helping create secure, unhackable networks, and now the first one is here and researchers used it to conduct the world’s first quantum internet video conference. I have a saying – the future...
World’s first autonomous robot Dentist implants two teeth into a patient
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Globally there’s a huge shortage of qualified dentists, but in the future that might not be a problem now that robots are on the case… We’ve all volunteered for weird things in our lives, whether it’s something we want to do or not and...
Chinese Government orders the “immediate shutdown” of all Bitcoin exchanges, BTC balks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Bitcoin shows no sign of stopping or slowing down so regulators and governments are now starting to take the regulation and “management” of the “stateless crypto economy” more seriously A little while ago I gave a talk on the Future of Money, which is...
South China Airlines swaps boarding cards for facial recognition
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Biometrics is quickly becoming the security tool of choice for a vast number of governments and organisations, and increasingly I’m seeing them being used to create new “contactless” borders and “frictionless” customer experiences Earlier this year I reported that Australia had decided to do...
The death of the combustion engine, China prepares to announce ban
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It now looks inevitable that the world will make the switch to electric vehicles, but there is still a lot to be done to build out the infrastructure and capacity needed to support these governments aspirations Sell your oil and gas stocks, and throw...
China announces plans to build a 2,500mph train to rival the Hyperloop
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF When people looked into the future they saw faster more efficient planes that made trains obsolete, but the tables look like they’re starting to turn. As the race to be the first company to build the world’s first commercial Hyperloop network, a network of...
China’s cashless future, PBoC gets ready to launch world’s first national cryptocurrency
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The use of cash in society is falling and some of the world’s largest central banks are creating new cryptocurrencies and planning for a future without cash. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my...
World first as Chinese scientists communicate without sending any data, revolution in computing beckons
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to communicate without sending any data, and without using any particles as intermediaries, sounds impossible but scientists have just demonstrated it working and it could change everything about technology and communications as we know it. Firstly I’m going to get this one...
China shows off its revolutionary silent submarine engine
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Submarine engines are noisy, for a hole host of reasons, but China’s latest engine is the quietest in the world and it could revolutionise underwater warfare. In the 1990’s film The Hunt For Red October, by Tom Clancy, Sean Connery plays the role of...
World first as Chinese scientists teleport particles 300km into space
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Teleportation is the ultimate sci-fi dream, and scientists are getting better at teleporting quantum particles further than ever before but teleporting real objects is still a long way away. Earlier this week Chinese scientists managed to teleport an object from Earth and into space,...
China wants to build a 20,000 tonne warship that submerges
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As China continues to build out its military capabilities it’s beginning to put new twists on old ideas, and this latest one is straight from the movies The Chinese navy is taking the concept of arsenal ships, ships that were first thought of by...
Chinese scientists have built the world’s first quantum satellite network
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum networks promise almost total secrecy but significant hurdles remain to creating international and internet scale networks, now though China looks like it will be the first to create the first international, cross border, quantum network Late last year, a green dot appeared in...
China brings the world’s largest floating solar power plant online
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Solar power is on an unstoppable roll and with companies bringing new capacity online every minute of every day the future of the technology looks bright Late last week, workers switched on a solar energy plant that’s capable of producing 40 megawatts of power...
Scientists two headed ‘Franken-Rat’ paves the way for human head transplant trials
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Scientists have been performing head transplants on animals for decades, and now a Chinese team want to move to human trials by the end of the year Following hot on the heels of the creation of a Human-Animal hybrid “animal,” a team of Chinese...
Experts are starting to agree that AI will replace CEO’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF If you can break a job into roles and tasks you can automate it, and now CEO’s are coming into the firing line… There’s a saying – if you can describe your job in one sentence then get prepared for it to be automated....
Baidu’s AI just achieved Zero Shot Learning
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As babies humans often “just learn” things, it’s a gift, but now AI’s are catching us up and starting to learn in the same way we do and it’ll change AI forever. Given the glut of artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs in the past year,...
