The “balloon” story is just the latest reminder of the technological Cold War between the United States and China, that strategic surprise is still a component of geopolitics, and of how difficult it is to rightly assess the real capacities of  Chinese technologies: from Chinese claims to have cracked the RSA cipher, the most widely used cryptographic algorithm online, to quantum communications or China’s space push – from launchers, Moon missions or the Tiangong space station, the only one next to the ISS.

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The harder assessing technological capabilities, the greater strategic uncertainty: the US decision to wait before shooting down the balloon, compared to the quick shooting of one another “high-altitude object“ in Alaska, seems to indicate that there was no clear playbook on what to do in case of such incidents.

 

The world had over- or under-estimated Russia’s capabilities just a year ago. How well do we understand China’s technology level?

 

JEDI opens a new dimensions of its in-depth scientific and technological foresight work by:

• Assessing China’s technological level

• Deep diving into some key technological enablers on which China is a leader, such as space, cloud, semiconductors, quantum and post-quantum cryptography.

 

Key insights of the China Tech Radar (that will be published quarterly from Q1 2023) will be presented during an official side-event at the Munich Security Conference, as contribution to the analysis of where Europe and free societies could focus to keep or regain tech leadership.

 

André Loesekrug-Pietri, Chairman & Scientific Director of JEDI declared: “Anticipation is critical to tackle the most important issues our democratic societies are facing. Next to our core mission of launching scientific and technological GrandChallenges, we are delighted to share our insights on today’s massive black box i.e. China thanks to our foresight capability brought by our large deeptech community, and our interdisciplinary moonshot approach. To give critical insights and anticipation capabilities to public and private sector leaders.“