Yesterday (Nov 16, 2023) speaking at the "RegTech Summit" in NYC .. one interesting question someone asked me during one of the breaks was my thoughts about how China's AI governance would play into the dire need for global regulatory harmonization I have been "harping on" (his phrase). My reply was that it would be something critical to watch as China is already slated to become the largest datasphere globally within a year or so and we already see evidence of politics and fragmentation between the CAC and the Ministry of Science and Tech doing an end run representing China at the recent UK AI Summit. The EO from President Biden has already been followed by CISA, DHS, NIST (who have been working on AI governance and risk management for 2+ years already) each coming out with their different rules and guidance for AI, cybersecurity, has already put the financial services industry into a miasma of domestic inconsistencies of standards. None of these harmonize well with the regulations coming from the UK and the EU, so why not throw into that quagmire the additional bureaucratic politics of AI governance in China, which is already slated to be the biggest datasphere globally in the next 13 months. Each of the different Chinese ministries, agencies and other authorities are coming to the fore with agendas and approaches. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has put forth domestic regulations and developed local regulatory tools and standards while the Ministry of Science and Technology made an end run representing China in the UK's AI Safety Summit. Unfortunately to date the broader financial services industry globally still has not gotten basics of a Taxonomy finalized (more kudos to @Asif Riaz to keep plodding through this) or the risk framework which are the first steps towards harmonizing and alleviating the compliance burden (especially in data security, sovereignty, and privacy) that all FIs will face. While policy, procedures and technology chase the tactical issues that the lack of harmonization globally creates the risks grow by orders of magnitude.
------------------------------
Weiyee In
------------------------------