How can Beijing attract top-tier Chinese AI professionals based abroad?

Beijing should shift its strategy and improve ways to attract and retain top Chinese AI professionals as America’s accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into military and national security systems puts such talent in a bind.

As geopolitical tensions rise, many highly skilled Chinese researchers working at US tech and research institutions are confronting a painful dilemma, according to Dai Mingjie, a researcher at the Institute of Public Policy at the Guangzhou-based South China University of Technology.

Tighter security reviews, possible isolation from sensitive projects and identity conflicts were forcing them to “choose a side”, Dai said in an article published on the institute’s social media account on Monday.

“Faced with this situation, China should build regionally embedded talent ecosystems that allow top talent to truly integrate into the domestic innovation system, take root and grow within industry-academia-research collaboration,” Dai wrote.

Such a strategy would “help the country transition from a major trainer of AI talent to a genuine development highland for talent”, she added.

China’s strength in training large numbers of AI talent has not been matched by an equally robust development scene.