“We are being outspent. We are being out-researched. We are being outpaced. We are being out-staffed,” said Amy Webb, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business who specializes in future forecasting. “We have failed and are continuing to fail to see China as a militaristic, economic, and diplomatic pacing threat when it comes to AI.” Xi “sees artificial intelligence as an integral point in shifting geopolitics and geo-economics,” Webb said. China is spending 9 percent of its government budget on R&D — three times the U.S. level, she said. Meanwhile, in Washington, “there is a small group of people, they are having meetings and I have been to some of those meetings. And there is just no sense of urgency,” she said.