Return a decade and most Individuals had by no means heard of Huawei. Right this moment, the Chinese language telecom large is an emblem of how shortly China can dominate a strategic expertise sector and within the course of create new nationwide safety and market threats for U.S. authorities and trade.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the highest Democrat on the Senate Choose Committee on Intelligence, is now apprehensive about one other Chinese language firm that he predicts will eclipse Huawei in each scale and consequence: BGI. It’s not constructing cell towers or smartphones for the 5G period. It’s gathering DNA.
“If Huawei was large, BGI shall be even greater,” Warner mentioned on the CNBC CFO Council Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.
BGI is likely one of the largest genomics firms on the earth. It operates DNA sequencing laboratories in China and overseas. It processes genetic knowledge for hospitals, pharmaceutical corporations and researchers throughout dozens of nations, in line with a latest report by the Nationwide Safety Fee on Rising Biotechnology.
The corporate started as a Beijing-based analysis entity, the Beijing Genomics Institute, tied carefully to China’s nationwide genome tasks. It later expanded into a world industrial powerhouse, promoting DNA sequencing, prenatal testing, most cancers screening, and large-scale inhabitants genetic evaluation, in line with an NBC Information report.
By subsidiaries, BGI says it operates within the U.S. Europe, and Japan. In a number of nations, it helped constructed nationwide genetic databases and pandemic testing techniques.
A person visits the sales space of BGI on the Wholesome Life Chain space of the third China Worldwide Provide Chain Expo CISCE in Beijing, capital of China, July 16, 2025.
Xinhua Information Company | Xinhua Information Company | Getty Photographs
U.S. intelligence officers imagine that world footprint provides BGI entry to at least one the most important collections of genetic knowledge on Earth. Lawmakers have warned that genetic knowledge is not only medical info. At scale, it turns into a strategic asset spurring a “DNA arms race,” in line with a Washington Put up report. DNA profiles can reveal ancestry, bodily traits, illness threat, and household relationships, and when linked with synthetic intelligence, the information may also be used for surveillance, monitoring and long-term organic analysis tied to nationwide safety, in line with the Washington Put up’s reporting.
On the CNBC occasion this week, Warner continued to press for extra give attention to BGI. “They’re hoovering up DNA knowledge,” Warner mentioned. “This stage of experimentation on people and mental property theft, all of us needs to be involved about it.”
Congressional investigators have beforehand warned that BGI maintains shut ties to the Chinese language Communist Occasion and Chinese language navy, in line with a report from the Home Choose Committee on the CCP. They argue that China makes little distinction between industrial knowledge and state safety wants.
The ‘tremendous soldier’ concern
One of many largest fears tied to BGI and China’s broader biotech push is the opportunity of a genetically enhanced soldier. U.S. officers have publicly claimed that China has explored human efficiency enhancement and navy biotechnology. U.S. protection analysts say China’s analysis spans inhabitants DNA assortment, navy databases, and AI-driven human efficiency modeling, in line with a Wall Road Journal op-ed written by U.S. Director of the Central Intelligence Company John Ratcliffe in 2020, when he was Director of Nationwide Intelligence throughout President Trump’s first time period.
Warner instantly referenced these issues this week.
“It is terrifying,” Warner mentioned.
Troops make preparations earlier than a navy parade in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2025.
Xinhua Information Company | Xinhua Information Company | Getty Photographs
Warner described China as a fantastic nation and nice competitor, and as a former telecom government (he was among the many founders of Nextel), he mentioned what Huawei was capable of execute on — producing good merchandise at cheap costs earlier than the U.S. and Western rivals have been ready — is a cautionary story.
The BGI story appears uncomfortably acquainted to Warner.
“Return in time eight or 9 years, and most of the people had by no means heard of Huawei,” he mentioned.
Huawei rose by combining large state assist, world market entry and aggressive pricing, not solely outcompeting Western corporations on scale and price, however positioning itself contained in the world’s telecom infrastructure earlier than governments understood the safety implications. Huawei was first positioned on a U.S. commerce blacklist in 2019, which banned U.S. corporations from promoting some expertise to the Chinese language tech large over nationwide safety issues. Chip restrictions on Huawei have since turn out to be even stricter.
However Warner mentioned by the point the U.S. moved to limit Huawei, “[we started to] lose somewhat.”
A lot of the 5G spine had already been formed by Chinese language expertise.
Throughout a separate interview with Javers on the CNBC CFO Council Summit, the Republican Chairman of the Home committee on the Chinese language Communist Occasion, Michigan congressman John Moolenaar, mentioned “We have seen how they run the play of extra capability, worth manipulation, driving folks out of enterprise in several areas; they’ll proceed to run that play,” he mentioned. “We need to be pleasant with China, however China just isn’t our buddy. They’re our foremost adversary,” he added.
The Soviet Union was a navy and ideological competitor, however China, in tech area after area, Warner says — from telecom and 5G to AI, quantum computing and biotech — is a distinct type of competitor.
Warner now sees BGI following an identical mannequin in biotechnology. Like Huawei, BGI scaled quickly with state assist. The Washington, D.C.-based assume tank Basis of Protection of Democracies known as upon lawmakers of each events earlier this 12 months to limit BGI’s entry to U.S. establishments.
Congress has been attempting to go varied variations of the BIOSECURE Act, which might restrict the flexibility of Chinese language biotechs to function within the U.S. Some U.S. hospitals and analysis establishments with ties to Chinese language genomics corporations are below federal stress, in line with the Related Press, although some medical professionals throughout the U.S. say they threat dropping key analysis assist for core medical objectives. BGI instructed the AP that the invoice is “a false flag focusing on firms below the premise of nationwide safety. We strictly comply with guidelines and legal guidelines, and we have now no entry to Individuals’ private knowledge in any of our work,” it mentioned.
U.S. intel has moved too slowly, and disrupted key spying alliances
Warner mentioned the U.S. intelligence equipment has moved too slowly to acknowledge the biotech menace. He says that intelligence businesses focus an excessive amount of on international governments and militaries, with much less consideration positioned on industrial expertise sectors. However in a world the place expertise supremacy is nationwide safety, Warner says extra of our intelligence efforts have to replicate this shift.
Solely up to now two to 3 years, he says, has the U.S. significantly expanded spying into AI, semiconductors, and biotechnology. Warner says we want a extra “superior strategy” on this space, and he gave as one latest instance when China’s largest chipmaker SMIC surprised U.S. officers by producing a six-nanometer chip regardless of sweeping U.S. export controls. The breakthrough confirmed that Washington had underestimated each China’s technical qualities and talent to work round restrictions. “We received caught off guard with the SMIC six-nanometer chip,” Warner mentioned.
Warner can also be apprehensive that monitoring China’s tech rise requires a sort of deep cooperation with U.S. allies that the Trump administration has squandered, equivalent to the worldwide intelligence-sharing community known as the “5 Eyes” alliance.
These relationships are actually below pressure, he mentioned, and key companions together with the UK, the Netherlands, and France have gone public in saying they’re reluctant to share intel with the U.S. “They really feel like we could also be politicizing the intel product and that isn’t excellent news for America,” Warner mentioned.
Underlying his issues in regards to the expertise competitors with China in areas together with AI and biotech is the U.S. ceding the worldwide lead in requirements setting. For many years, the U.S. formed the foundations for wi-fi networks, satellites, and web infrastructure. That dominance assist Individuals lead world markets, Warner mentioned, however now China is aggressively positioning itself because the worldwide requirements setter.
Warner described the U.S. position in worldwide our bodies as one of many “secret sauces” within the period of America’s dominance of the worldwide financial system and expertise, permitting the U.S. to leverage improvements occurring across the globe, “even when it did not come up in America.”
Throughout expertise domains, influencing requirements and protocols is vital to not solely sustaining a aggressive edge but additionally establishing moral boundaries. “Will or not it’s us or the Chinese language?” Warner mentioned. “The Chinese language are available with clearly a much less humanist strategy. It has been efficient in a lot of domains. We see it on standards-setting our bodies. China floods the zone with a lot of engineers, virtually shopping for off the votes. We have to reengage for American enterprise and authorities,” he mentioned.