Chinese Students Are Key to US National Security, Eric Schmidt Says

Eric Schmidt, the longtime Google CEO who now runs two Pentagon advisory boards, says current legislative efforts to bar Chinese students from studying in the United States could be “against our own self-interest.”

Schmidt said that far from being a net negative for U.S. national security, these students contribute heavily to it.

“Remember that, in America, the military does not build very much. Not only do you have to have military capability but the contractors also have to get this talent and most of them don’t have it, to be honest,” he said. “One of the things that we looked at was the role of Chinese students in American research. And for those of you who are shocked by this, I’m sorry but I’ll tell you the truth, that many of the top graduate students are foreign-born and typically Chinese. That’s partly because the really, really smart Chinese researchers would prefer to be here. They love America! And they love the freedoms…they want academic freedom.”

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/06/chinese-students-are-key-us-national-security-eric-schmidt-says/166212/

In his talk with Defense One, Schmidt noted the Commission’s first-quarter recommendations for helping DoD adopt AI more quickly, and helping the broader government better use AI in national security. Among the key recommendations is helping the government better recruit AI experts, by accelerating the clearance process for such experts.

Schmidt said that he had been discussing the recommendations with Senate staffers on Capitol Hill, staffers working on the markup for the National Defense Authorization Act. He said to expect to “see significant focus on workforce development” in the NDAA markup.