10/11/2021- 10:20 a.m.
The Pentagon’s former software chief said he quit because China has already won the tech war guaranteeing global dominance — with some US government systems mere “kindergarten level” in comparison.
Nicolas Chaillan, 37, told the Financial Times on Sunday that there is “good reason to be angry” at the US failing to rise to China’s cyber threat, even fearing that it puts his children’s future is at risk.
“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” Nicolas Chaillan, 37, told the paper.
Chaillan — who was the Pentagon’s first chief software officer — said that China will dominate the future of the world by controlling everything from media narratives to geopolitics.
He claimed that the US, like Beijing, should have prioritized artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cyber capabilities over traditional military spending like building new fighter jets.
“Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal,” he told the paper of his prediction of China’s route to future world dominance.
He attacked Google for not working with the US defense department on AI, while Chinese companies are obliged to work with Beijing.
The US is also wasting time debating the ethics of AI while China makes “massive investment” while eschewing such concerns, he said.
Some US government cyber-defense systems are so dated they are merely at “kindergarten level,” he insisted.
“While we wasted time in bureaucracy, our adversaries moved further ahead,” Chaillan wrote in a scathing letter on LinkedIn last month when first announcing his resignation.
“At this point, I am just tired of continuously chasing support and money to do my job,” he said of the pioneering Pentagon job that was “probably the most challenging and infuriating of my entire career.”
Chaillan told the Financial Times that he plans in the coming weeks to testify to Congress about the Chinese cyber threat to US supremacy, including in classified briefings.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Air Force told the Financial Times that Frank Kendall, secretary of the US Air Force, had discussed Chaillan’s recommendations with him and thanked him for his contributions.
Google was not immediately available for comment, Reuters said.
