American National Standards Institute (ANSI) members from the public and private sectors recently joined an Information Technology International Standardization Exchange with the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI) on September 20. Aimed at improving mutual understanding and coordination in international standardization under ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information Technology, the virtual meeting was co-hosted by ANSI and CESI.
Leaders and technical experts from the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and the Chinese mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1 exchanged insights on the management and operation of their respective committees, and discussed trends in information technology international standardization. Some 60 people from ANSI’s members and CESI’s affiliated organizations participated.
After remarks by Leslie McDermott, ANSI’s senior director of international development, and Dong Jian, director of CESI Information Technology Research Center, Laura Lindsay, chair of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) Executive Board and national standards officer of Microsoft Corporation, introduced the management and operation of the U.S. TAG and its subcommittees. INCITS is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization, and its Executive Board administers the ANSI-accredited U.S. TAG to JTC 1. Lindsay also elaborated on the standardization trends of information technology in the U.S., emphasizing the public-private partnership model and the focus on smooth transitions from R&D to standardization.
Yu Yuntao, chair of ISO/IEC JTC 1, Subcommittee (SC) 43, Brain-computer interfaces, and technical director of CESI, explained the high-level working mechanism of China’s mirror committee to JTC 1. Other experts from CESI and member organizations of the JTC 1 mirror committee highlighted how China adopts JTC 1 standards as national standards, and explained their work under JTC 1 SC 42, Artificial intelligence, Working Group (WG) 5, Computational approaches and computational characteristics of AI systems, and SC 40, IT service management and IT governance, WG 3, Business process outsourcing (BPO).
Recognizing the differences in national standardization practices and U.S. TAG/mirror committee management systems, the participants also shared future plans for upcoming work under JTC 1 and expressed willingness to improve communication in international standards setting in the information technology sector.
The exchange builds on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that ANSI and CESI signed in June 2023, which aimed to facilitate cooperation between the two organizations.