MI6 Needs Tech Help To Win AI Race With China And Russia – Spy Chief | MI6| Today Headlines
MI6 Needs Tech Help To Win AI Race With China And Russia – Spy Chief | MI6
| Today Headlines | Today Headlines
MI6 will need to become “more open to keep it secret” and work with tech companies to counter threats posed by China and Russia that seek to take advantage of the mastery of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
In his first speech as head of the foreign spy agency on Tuesday, Richard Moore is expected to admit that “unlike Q in the Bond films,” MI6 cannot develop the tools it needs internally to counter them. hybrid physical and virtual threats.
It would become necessary to ‘tap into’ the global tech industry, he added, through initiatives such as the National Security Investment Fund, which earlier this year invested £ 100million in seven funds. venture capital fund aimed at supporting high-tech startups.
“I cannot stress enough the radical change this represents in the culture, ethics and way of working at MI6, as we have traditionally relied primarily on our own capabilities to develop the world-class technologies that we need. to stay secret and carry out our mission ”Moore should say. “We have to become more open to stay secret.”
MI6 has been concerned for some time that China, in particular, is going beyond the traditional technological advantage the West enjoys and which underpins its intelligence activities. The rapid improvements in Beijing’s cyber capability over the past five years have led some to conclude that it has global surveillance capability.
“Our adversaries are putting money and ambition into mastering artificial intelligence, quantum computing and synthetic biology, because they know that mastering these technologies will give them leverage”, the spy chief will say.
Synthetic biology gives researchers precision tools to manipulate living organisms. Its emergence has prompted the United States to warn that its existence “enhances and expands” opportunities for the creation of biological weapons, although – despite the apparent reference to Covid-19 – the British intelligence community believes the worst case scenario is it is likely that the disease reached humans via animals.
Russia has also rapidly developed its hacking capabilities, and has been accused by the West of sophisticated pirating of the relatively obscure software SolarWinds to spy on the US government – and of allowing hackers based in the country to try to extort money. money to UK companies in so-called ransomware attacks.
Last month, it emerged that MI6 and other UK spy agencies, MI5 and GCHQ, had signed a deal with US tech and shopping giant Amazon to host their cloud computing. A former director general of the National Cyber Security Center, Ciaran Martin, said it would allow agencies “to obtain information from huge amounts of data in a matter of minutes.”
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