Former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson urges US to catch up with China on 5G deployment, calling it ‘a failure of our own making’
- Paulson’s concerns are contrary to Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s top economic adviser, who said in July the US was ahead of China in 5G development
Although the US remains a world leader in hi-tech research and development, its failure to quickly commercialise high-end tech like next-generation 5G networks has seen the country lag behind China in the tech race, according to former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
Although cutting-edge technologies like AI algorithms and machine learning techniques can make everything faster and more efficient, their practical use needs the support of 5G, which is considered the transmission and distribution infrastructure to enable these technologies to perform optimally, Paulson wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post published on Tuesday.
“While our universities and tech firms still lead in cutting-edge innovation – from artificial intelligence to 5G wireless technology – it is China that has deployed them. The United States is losing the commercialisation race, a failure of our own making,” said Paulson, who also serves as chairman of the Paulson Institute. He added that the US must urgently confront these shortcomings to make up for lost time and opportunities.
Beijing’s goal to dominate tech industries under its Made in China 2025 plan, which includes dedicated investments in hi-tech areas including semiconductor design and fabrication, has been dealt a setback by the US-China trade war, with a number of advanced manufacturing sectors experiencing weaker demand.
5G, a technology crucial to reaping increased economic benefits from connecting billions of devices and building new services in the future, is one of the key issues that has entangled the world’s two largest economies and deepened the trade war after Huawei Technologies was banned from supplying the latest telecom equipment to the US and some of its allies.
On December 5, Shenzhen-based Huawei launched a legal challenge against the US Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision on November 22 to ban carriers in rural America from tapping the Universal Service Fund (USF) to buy the Chinese telecom giant’s network equipment, adding to its earlier legal battles with US authorities.
