China Lying in Wait in US Digital Infrastructure: CISA Chief

"The sky's the limit" when considering Chinese capabilities for conducting digital attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure, since China switched from focusing on economic and political espionage to a strategy that can only be pre-positioning for attacks, Brandon Wales, executive director of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said Wednesday. Also at a Semafor conference on digital infrastructure, Kathy Grillo, Verizon senior vice president-public policy and government affairs, said the lack of FCC auction authority could have significant ramifications in a handful of years for keeping up with growing data demands. Numerous conference speakers talked about AI’s potential and risks.

Wales said China's compromising of critical U.S. infrastructure is likely aimed at affecting the U.S. geopolitical decision-making and compromising U.S. ability to project power in the Pacific, especially in a conflict over Taiwan. He said China laying the groundwork for disrupting power and water systems in the U.S. seems aimed at causing "silent panic." Sandra Joyce, vice president-Google Cloud's Mandiant Intelligence, said China has become more sophisticated in obscuring what it's doing while embedded in critical infrastructure. Its "living off the land" technique apes the functionality of native operating systems, making it almost invisible, she said.

Helping China is the lack of sufficient insight into cyberattacks against U.S. companies and governmental agencies, Wales said. Few entities report attacks to the FBI or CISA, he said. That must change, as such reporting can yield quicker responses and improved network defenses nationwide, he said. But reporting today "is very isolated," he said. Joyce said that while some in the private sector are concerned that reporting requirements could hinder their efforts to restore critical functions in a cyberattack, reporting and restoration can both be done.

Wales said the federal government and social media companies are engaging on about foreign disinformation activity on their platforms.

Most wireless carriers have robust spectrum pipelines, but it can take up to a decade to make more available from identifying a band to the point it becomes usable, Grillo said. The FCC's lack of auction authority leaves future spectrum needs in jeopardy, she said, adding Verizon and other companies "need to have certainty" in spectrum before they can make big investments.

Grillo said that while the U.S. is tackling broadband availability, the looming end of the affordable connectivity program is a major concern. She said Verizon and most companies will offer low-income plans in ACP's stead -- Verizon's being a $20 monthly offering, with qualifying new customers eligible for six months free service. But the government needs a long-term solution to affordability, she said. Separately, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) also called for an ACP renewal. He said North Carolina -- using state spending, the broadband equity, access and deployment program and American Rescue Plan funding -- should be able to provide 100% connectivity statewide within a few years.

AI Challenges

AI represents a fundamentally different technology cycle than anything before it, given the speed at which it's developing, said John Roese, Dell global chief technology officer-products and operations. That makes regulation of AI a particular challenge, he said. Other technologies typically have more orderly generational cycles, he said, pointing to 4G's evolution into 5G taking years. That lag allows time for creating policy structures, he said. AI "literally is reinventing itself almost every week" with new approaches and optimizations, he said. Roese said the apparatus that surrounds policymaking, such as academia, think tanks and conferences, is "on a speed that is about 10 orders of magnitude slower than the pace of innovation in AI." As a result, today's policy discussions about AI "reflect the technology ecosystem of about two years ago, and that's not good." He said policymakers have to get closer to industry and practitioners to be kept better abreast of AI technology.

Asked about the need for AI regulation, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott insisted companies are trying to develop the technology "in a really thoughtful way." He said Microsoft has been in discussions with policymakers and the public and respects that "we don't have all the answers." He said AI is enabling shifts from what was previously thought impossible to it becoming merely hard, such as AI doing high-quality medical diagnoses. Society should be "wildly grateful" about that impossible-to-hard transition happening, he said.

AI could be particularly transformative in aiding scientific discovery, said Tom Lue, Google DeepMind governance head. He said the equivalent of NASA's Apollo program is needed for AI, with policymakers and the private sector collaborating on where AI can make a huge societal difference -- potentials being climate change and food insecurity -- incentivizing work on those areas and investing in the infrastructure needed to enable it.

Tech entrepreneurship is heavily centered in California, New York and Massachusetts, and AI development threatens to further that, said former AOL CEO Steve Case, now co-founder-CEO of investment firm Revolution. While talent is spread around the U.S., startup capital is not equally distributed, he said. Pointing to the way the FCC mandating open access on telecom networks helped drive internet growth, Case said Big Tech doesn't need to be broken up, but there needs to be similar open access provisions for AI and other new technologies.

Notebook

Impatient 5G skepticism over not seeing transformative applications yet is "somewhat disappointing," said Verizon's Grillo. She said 91% of the U.S. can get 35 Mbps wireless 5G service today, but faster smartphone speeds are just one aspect, with impacts from healthcare to manufacturing. 4G's rollout and impact "was a whole decade," she said. "We're really just at [5G's] beginning."

The digital infrastructure of nations across the Asia-Pacific region varies widely, but all are focused on improving it, said Visa Asia Pacific Chairman Chris Clark. He said nearly all APAC nations are establishing and staffing ministries of digital infrastructure. A hurdle for some is the condition of their underlying infrastructure, such as electricity, Clark said. For example, he said 5% to 6% of the population of the Philippines lacks good access to electricity.