Alexandr Wang: US technologists should help preserve US military and economic leadership

In 2018, Alexandr Wang went to China. On a visit to a company building facial recognition technology, the co-founder of US start-up Scale AI saw early signs of a “tech cold war” brewing and decided to act. 

When Wang set up Scale AI in 2016, aged 19, his plan was to use a combination of human labour and technology to accurately label the reams of data underpinning artificial intelligence tools. His early customers were autonomous vehicle companies.