By Eduardo Baptista
SHANGHAI, March 27 (Reuters) - China's largest federation for science and technology professionals on Friday announced a boycott of a top artificial intelligence conference after the California-based foundation that runs the gathering stopped accepting submissions from entities under U.S. sanctions.
The Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, known as NeurIPS, announced earlier this week a policy change that effectively banned entities like Chinese tech companies Huawei
and SMIC under U.S. sanctions from submitting papers.
The decision sparked outrage in China, which is locked in an intensifying race with the United States to develop the most cutting-edge AI models. NeurIPS provides a crucial forum for researchers and companies worldwide to submit peer-reviewed research, discuss the latest breakthroughs in AI and recruit the best talent in the industry.
In response, China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) said in a statement that it would stop accepting funding applications for members wanting to attend NeurIPS and would instead redirect them to domestic conferences or "international conferences that respect the rights and interests of Chinese academics."
NeurIPS' new policy, which it said was enacted to comply with U.S. laws, means that previous Chinese sponsors of the conference, such as Huawei, are excluded from submitting research papers.
CAST added that papers accepted at NeurIPS would no longer be recognised as qualifying research outputs for its funding programmes. However, it will still acknowledge their academic impact if evaluated by Chinese academic societies.
The escalating conflict highlights the effect of geopolitical tensions on cutting-edge AI research, as the U.S. and China try to use state power to influence each other's frontier technology capabilities.
Washington has in recent years increased scrutiny on Chinese scientists at U.S. universities, investigating a growing number over alleged ties to entities in mainland China. It has also imposed sanctions on hundreds of Chinese universities and companies, preventing them from legally acquiring a wide range of advanced U.S. technology.
China has also recently tightened its regulatory screws, reportedly barring two executives of AI agent startup Manus from leaving the country as regulators review whether Meta Platforms' $2 billion acquisition of the Chinese-founded firm originally violated investment rules.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Shanghai; Editing by Jamie Freed)
