AI rift widens as China urges boycott of top US conference over sanctions ban
he NeurIPS Foundation has said restrictions are being introduced to comply with US sanctions.
Photo: Shutterstock Chinese computer scientists and researchers have been urged to boycott a major artificial intelligence conference after its organisers barred submissions from US-sanctioned institutions, including leading Chinese tech groups such as Huawei Technologies.
The move by the China Computer Federation (CCF) is the latest flashpoint in deepening US-China tensions over AI, a fast-evolving field with far-reaching economic, social and military implications.
The influential professional body said on Wednesday it “strongly opposed” a decision by the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) to stop accepting submissions from individuals affiliated with sanctioned entities. “Openness, inclusiveness, equality and cooperation are the core values of academic exchange and fundamental principles recognised by the international academic community,” the CCF said. “NeurIPS’s ban on submissions from specific institutions and its politicisation of academic exchange violate these basic principles.” Often billed as the world’s premier AI conference, NeurIPS draws tens of thousands of leading researchers each year to present cutting-edge work.
It has also become a key recruitment battleground where US and Chinese tech firms compete intensely for AI talent.
At last year’s event – held across two locations for the first time, partly amid concerns that Chinese participants might face US visa hurdles – a team from Alibaba Cloud, including chief technology officer Zhou Jingren, was among four winners of the conference’s best paper award, following a similar achievement by researchers from ByteDance and Peking University a year earlier.
Alibaba Cloud is the AI and cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.
China has become the largest contributor to NeurIPS in recent years, according to data from European advisory firm AI World, driven by research from institutions such as Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Chinese tech firms including Alibaba, ByteDance and Ant Group were also major sponsors of last year’s conference.
None responded to requests for comment on whether they would continue their involvement following the policy change.
The move by the China Computer Federation (CCF) is the latest flashpoint in deepening US-China tensions over AI.
Photo: Shutterstock The NeurIPS Foundat
原文链接: 南华早报