We should use Reagan as a guide in handling our modern arms race with China

I can still remember, as a young Air Force officer, sitting in the cockpit of my B-1 bomber knowing that we could deliver nuclear weapons virtually anywhere in the world.I also remember watching President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 to negotiate nuclear arms reductions.The whole world was watching.

The nuclear arms race was a global threat, and the world’s two most powerful nations had a responsibility to confront it.Now imagine that, as Reagan sat across the table from Gorbachev, American companies were selling Moscow the technology it needed to make its nuclear arsenal even more powerful.ANTHROPIC CEO LIKENS AI FIGHT WITH CHINA TO COLD WAR, SEEKS 'DISARMAMENT NEGOTIATIONS'The idea would have been absurd.At the closing ceremony for the Geneva Summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan face away from each other, 21st November 1985.(Bettmann via Getty Images)Yet today, as the United States enters another potentially historic technological arms race, we are entertaining a remarkably similar proposition: selling China the advanced computer chips it needs to build the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence.CHINA IS BUILDING AN AI WAR MACHINE.

WASHINGTON MUST WAKE UP BEFORE IT’S TOO LATEAdvanced AI chips are not nuclear weapons.But in the emerging competition over artificial intelligence, they may be the closest equivalent we have to the strategic materials that powered the last great arms race.

In short, they are the fuel.Without enormous quantities of advanced chips and computing power, China cannot train frontier AI systems at the same scale or speed as the United States.That is precisely why Beijing wants them, and precisely why Washington should think very carefully before selling them.TRUMP'S AI RACE WITH CHINA COULD BECOME THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF OUR TIMEWhen President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House this month, there will be ...