The news comes as President Biden is set to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping in San Francisco on Wednesday, following months of tension between the two superpowers. Xi previously said the development of the backbone network will establish the country as “a cyber power” and “accelerate the promotion of core Internet technologies,” the press release said.

But because this doesn’t apply to home internet speeds, and rather to internet infrastructure, it doesn’t pose a direct threat to the US, unlike how it otherwise competes with AI, semiconductors or wireless networking technology. It could, however, offer a foundation for Chinese-based businesses that would require a lot of bandwidth.

Wu Jianping, a professor at the department of computer science and technology Tsinghua University who is overseeing the backbone internet project, said in the press release that the system, including software and hardware, was made in China, produced and is independently controlled. He also called it the most advanced network in the world.

This isn’t the first time a major tech launch has coincided with a US visit. Huawei launched its highly-anticipated Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which features a breakthrough Chinese-made 5G chip, around the time some US diplomats were visiting the country in late summer. The US government later said it was investigating how the company would have the technology to make such a chip following sweeping efforts by the US to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology.

Source: CNN