He said China is “relentlessly focused” on achieving dominance across the broad spectrum of high technologies.

Testifying Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google, was quoted as saying by USNI News that the United States needs to maintain a five to 10-year advantage over its “pacing competitor” in AI and other high technology fields like quantum computing.

In discussing the commission’s report, due out March 1, he said he was “worried we don’t understand the competitive threat from China” that encompasses semiconductor manufacturing, directed energy, 5G technologies and synthetic biology, as well as AI, machine-learning and hypersonics.

“DoD treats software as a low priority,” Schmidt told the committee, arguing it actually needs to top the priorities list. “We need to build missiles like cars,” quickly and efficiently from design to deployment, not take years in the cumbersome 70-year-old Pentagon acquisition process, he was quoted as saying by USNI News.