Unpaywalled link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240109111730/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/us/politics/ai-china-uae-g42.html
A U.S. congressional committee has asked the Commerce Department to look into whether a giant technology company controlled by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates should be put under trade restrictions because of its ties to China.
The company, G42, specializes in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, and is overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the national security adviser of the Emirates and a younger brother of the country’s ruler.
It has signed recent agreements with prominent American technology companies, including Microsoft, Dell and OpenAI. A Silicon Valley chip firm, Cerebras, is building a supercomputer for G42 to create and power A.I. products.
But in a letter sent to the Commerce Department on Wednesday, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said the company works extensively with China’s “military, intelligence services and state-owned entities,” according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. The letter was signed by the chairman of the committee, Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin.
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A U.S. congressional committee has asked the Commerce Department to look into whether a giant technology company controlled by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates should be put under trade restrictions because of its ties to China.
The company, G42, specializes in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, and is overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the national security adviser of the Emirates and a younger brother of the country’s ruler.
But in a letter sent to the Commerce Department on Wednesday, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said the company works extensively with China’s “military, intelligence services and state-owned entities,” according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.
The congressional committee said it had reviewed documents showing that the chief executive of G42, Peng Xiao, “operates and is affiliated with an expansive network of companies that materially support” the Chinese military’s technological advancement as well as human rights abuses.
Those ties include partnerships with Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant under U.S. government sanctions, and BGI Genomics, which owns companies that the Commerce Department put on restricted lists last March.
The Biden administration has enacted trade policies to try to keep China from acquiring advanced chips and other tools that would help it surpass the United States in developing emerging technologies, including A.I.
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