Microsoft’s president and vice chairman, Brad Smith, cautioned the West against assuming China lags in technological development. Speaking at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Smith recently told CNBC that China is either close to or has surpassed Western nations in many technological areas.
“I think one of the dangers is that people who don’t go to China too often assume that they’re behind,” he told CNBC’s Karen Tso. “But when you go there, you’re impressed by how much they do.”
He predicted that Chinese and American companies would compete on technology into the distant future and went on to urge US and European companies to collaborate to grow economies and bring new advancements like artificial intelligence to the rest of the world.
US companies’ ‘China problem’
Talking about the presence of American companies in China, he said, “The truth is, as an American technology company, we can do business in China only when we are offering a service that the Chinese government wants to have there, and the U.S. government wants us to bring there.” “And in some cases, they look at, say, a data centre to support a Mercedes or a Siemens or a Starbucks or a General Motors—there seems to be a level of comfort. In consumer services, not really,” he added.
Microsoft has maintained a presence in China since 1992, operating its largest R&D centre outside the U.S. Although Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has stated that the company isn’t focused on China as a domestic market, it continues to provide services to Chinese companies. It has a more visible presence than many other U.S. tech giants.
