The director of the GCHQ spy agency, Jeremy Fleming, said the West must urgently act to ensure China does not dominate important emerging technologies and gain control of the global operating system.

In a blunt speech, Fleming said the West faces a battle for control of technologies such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics.

“The concern is that China’s size and technological weight mean that it has the potential to control the global operating system. We are now facing a moment of reckoning,” he said.

Russia remains the biggest immediate threat to the West, Fleming said, but Communist China’s long-term dominance of technology poses a much bigger problem.