Technology and the Rise of Great Powers

Will China or the U.S. lead the way in the Fourth Industrial Revolution? To answer this question, leading thinkers and policymakers in both countries draw lessons from past technology-driven power transitions that center the moment of innovation -- the eureka moment that sparks astonishing technological feats. In this book, Jeffrey Ding offers a different explanation of how technological revolutions affect competition among great powers. Rather than focusing on which state first introduced major innovations, he investigates why some states were more successful than others at adapting and embracing general-purpose technologies at scale. Drawing on historical case studies of past industrial revolutions as well as statistical analysis, Ding develops a theory that emphasizes institutional adaptations oriented around diffusing technological advances throughout the entire economy. Applying GPT diffusion theory to analyze U.S.-China competition in AI, this book derives novel insights about how today's technological breakthroughs will affect the U.S.-China power balance, as well as the optimal strategies for the U.S. and China to pursue. --- Event Details: https://my.princeton.edu/rsvp?id=1952845