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A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, the Guardian has learned.
Emails show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute (Jari) discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use.
Ministers have spent the past year stepping up warnings about the potential security risk posed by academic collaborations with China, with MI5 telling vice-chancellors in April that hostile states are targeting sensitive research that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.
They together raise questions about whether British science faculties understand that China has become increasingly authoritarian and militarised under Xi Jinping, and that proper due diligence is required in dealings with this state.”
A Channel 4 documentary last year revealed that Guo had written eight papers with Chinese collaborators at Shanghai University on missile design and using AI to control fleets of marine combat drones.
Of his previous collaborations, he said that the papers were classified as “basic research” and were written to help advance scientific knowledge in a broad range of fields rather than solving specific, real-world problems.