School of Health’s Jennifer Bouey, PhD, Leads Database Project Tracking China’s Export of AI

(December 20, 2023) — Global health professor and epidemiologist Jennifer Bouey, PhD, in collaboration with the RAND Corporation and AidData Research Lab, has published a database and two reports documenting China’s government-sponsored artificial intelligence services and products exported over the last two decades.

Bouey, chair of the global health department at Georgetown’s School of Health and senior policy researcher and Tang Chair in China Policy Studies at RAND, led the project that culminated in the China AI Exports Database made public on Dec. 11, 2023. The project’s genesis stemmed from Bouey’s work mapping China’s digital health influence in Africa.

In support of the work to create the database, Bouey and colleagues published two reports. China’s AI Exports: Developing a Tool to Track Chinese Development Finance in the Global South provides the technical documentation for the database and China’s AI Exports: Technology Distribution and Data Safety provides analysis to better understand China’s AI exports and their impact on developing countries.

According to the reports, China’s development-financed AI exports including AI infrastructure and AI applications, surged by three- to fourfold from 2005 to 2012 and have continued to grow in the AI applications. The AI products and services are exported to over 60 countries, many of which are partners of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s colossal infrastructure investments. The research report also addressed the stakeholders’ concerns about data safety and recipient governments’ AI capacity.

“It’s important to understand China’s AI influence as it will impact all sectors of our lives, including health care management and delivery across the globe,” Bouey says.