CIO.com asked what to expect from US–China AI talks. Michael Hasse of Itwerx – whose clients trade with China – was quoted at length on the part that actually reaches a business.
The mutual threat that keeps things stable
Part of why cooperation is possible at all is an implicit, mutual cyberattack threat:
“All of the major nation-states – and some minor – have sleeper personnel and unleveraged cybersecurity penetrations in their rivals’ key corporations and government agencies. In a scenario where China, or a rogue element within a Chinese corporation, decides to activate one or more of their options in that realm, then affected CIOs could have data leaks and/or security breaches that are far deeper and harder to detect than they may have realized was even possible.”
What the analyses usually miss
“What I frequently see missing in these analyses is the simple fact that the Chinese government and enterprise are inextricably intertwined, to an extent unimaginable to most Americans. Combine that with being joined at the hip to American trade interests and you have an automatic damper on anything that could cause major waves. We’ve been at war over AI technology for a few years now. Companies in the AI arena are already very well aware of the corporate espionage target on their backs.”
For a company well outside the AI industry, the practical read is narrower and more useful: if your supply chain or your customer base touches any of this, your exposure is not only your own network. It is everyone you exchange data with.
Read the full article at CIO.com.
Itwerx Corp is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business providing IT services across Seattle, Bellevue, Everett and Snohomish County. This is the kind of thing our cybersecurity work deals with – talk to us about yours.
