China is overhauling the world’s largest surveillance network with advanced AI, giving the state more automated powers to track people, analyse behaviour and predict potential unrest in real time. An FT analysis of more than a dozen procurement documents and interviews with people familiar with the contracts found that local governments across China are deploying new AI-powered surveillance systems as Beijing pushes police forces towards so-called predictive policing. The upgrades mark China’s most significant push in years to modernise a surveillance apparatus built a decade ago that authorities already use extensively to monitor the public, reduce street crime, suppress dissent and manage social stability.

Full report : Sources and docs detail how China is modernizing its decade-old domestic surveillance network by investing in new generations of AI-enabled cameras and software.