[NetEase Smart News, August 29] Gao Feng Consulting's founder and CEO, Zuijun Cai, alongside senior consultant Jackie Wang, highlighted that China is poised to take the lead in the field of artificial intelligence, but this requires a shift in traditional thinking models. They emphasized the need for support for groundbreaking research instead of merely following existing technologies.
In recent years, China has made significant strides in AI research, aiming to become a global leader in this transformative technology. According to data from The Economist, between 2012 and 2016, China’s AI companies secured $2.6 billion in funding, compared to $17.9 billion for U.S. counterparts. However, this gap is rapidly closing as China seizes this opportunity to outpace its international competitors.
In 2015, more than 40% of the world's top academic papers related to artificial intelligence were authored by Chinese researchers. From 2010 to 2014, patent applications in China based on AI increased by 186%, marking a substantial rise from the previous five years. Moreover, in the last two years, all the top-performing teams in the ImageNet Large Visual Recognition Challenge, a prestigious AI computer vision competition, were Chinese, with half of them being from China.
China’s three-step strategy to lead the world in AI involves establishing a roadmap to achieve leadership status by 2030. In response, China has announced that by 2030, its companies will become global leaders in AI technology. This aligns with China’s latest five-year plan, which prioritizes scientific and technological research.
Initiatives such as “Made in China 2025,†the “Three-year Guide to the Internet+Artificial Intelligence Program,†and the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan†aim to boost AI technology development in China. Various provinces and cities are offering favorable policies and substantial financial incentives for AI startups. For instance, Shenyang has created a 20 billion yuan investment fund focused on robotics development.
These supportive policies have spurred innovation among Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and tech giants alike. Leading firms like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are investing in or experimenting with AI technologies. New startups such as Carbon Cloud Intelligence, Out-Of-The-Way Interrogation, and Shang Tang Technology, along with “unicorns†like Didi and Xiaomi, are all exploring AI possibilities.
For example, Baidu has developed an advanced neural network-based machine translation system that surpasses human voice recognition accuracy rates. It also launched the Apollo Project, an open-source platform for autonomous driving solutions, to accelerate the development of the automotive industry. Competitor Tencent established its own AI lab, gathering 50 world-class scientists, researchers, and experts to focus on “content AI, social AI, and game AI.†Notably, Tencent’s “FineArt†AI software recently defeated the top-ranked Japanese Go player, Lee Sedol.
Chinese tech giants are actively discussing the future of artificial intelligence. In 2017, a Chinese startup ranked 11th in the MIT Technology Review’s list of the 50 smartest companies, specializing in computer vision technology. Its face recognition product, Face++, has identified and differentiated 100 million faces so far. Another company, HKUST, is a global leader in intelligent voice and natural language processing, with a market valuation reaching approximately $12 billion. Its voice recognition technology can distinguish various Chinese dialects.
Research on the foundational theories of artificial intelligence has expanded from a few elite universities to institutions across China. Chinese scholars have built a robust research community, enabling them to leverage resources in both Chinese and English. A growing number of engineering graduates are entering this field. With a vast population of internet and smartphone users, China possesses abundant data, providing valuable training datasets for AI learning algorithms.
The behavioral patterns of Chinese citizens and large datasets collected in daily life allow AI researchers to conduct extensive research and experiments at a pace and intensity that surpasses many foreign counterparts. China has the potential to become a global leader in AI. However, achieving this will necessitate a change in how key stakeholders—government, academia, and businesses—think.
So far, groundbreaking research has largely been conducted in the West due to the scientific infrastructure and resources behind AI. Conversely, Chinese scholars often focus on applying existing technologies rather than developing new ones. This is primarily because the Chinese government prioritizes tangible results from existing research, whereas fundamental scientific research in AI requires more time and carries greater risks.
China is fostering local companies in a technological bubble. Will this continue? Chinese companies excel at swiftly bringing new products and features to market, leveraging newly discovered opportunities. Similar to academic circles, these companies mostly focus on new applications of existing technologies rather than creating novel ones. Currently, there is limited motivation for breakthroughs akin to Google’s AlphaGo in basic scientific research.
For China to genuinely lead in AI, a fundamental shift is needed. More emphasis should be placed on the underlying science of technology development rather than focusing solely on new applications. This presents a challenge since the government must reconsider how research funding and proposals are evaluated, as well as how research project impacts are assessed.
Chinese companies are bold in identifying and jumping into new opportunities. However, under the “moon landing†model of Western companies like Microsoft or Google, they remain relatively underdeveloped. Additionally, geopolitical issues pose risks, potentially cutting off access to foreign technologies and patents, thus hindering rapid transformation.
According to a Pentagon report, China has invested over $700 million in U.S. AI startups over the last six years. The U.S. Department of Defense views this as a potential national security threat, urging the government to ban such investments. If foreign researchers believe their work will be exploited for “power†purposes, they may refuse to collaborate with Chinese entities.
The future advantage of companies will lie in data. To achieve the goal of becoming a global AI leader by 2030, China must take at least two crucial steps: revise incentive policies to encourage research on new AI technologies and continue nurturing the domestic academic community, establishing it as the foundation of global AI research.
Wu Enda, a prominent AI researcher in the U.S., once remarked that AI will become “the new electricityâ€â€”transforming not just one industry but all industries. In fact, AI is already widely applied across various fields, creating unprecedented opportunities to “activate new business.†Resources in the AI era are becoming increasingly open. A company’s competitive edge could be disrupted overnight by the cross-pollination of knowledge and ideas from different industries.
The strengths of future companies will be data, and the ability to derive predictive insights from this new “goldmine,†rather than relying solely on post-fact analysis.
Can China claim a global leading position in AI? Even if it does, it may take some time. However, it would be unwise to exclude China when it comes to technological innovation today.
Reportedly, Zuijun Cai is the founder and CEO of Gao Feng Consulting, a global strategic and management consulting firm in Greater China. He is also the author of “China’s Subversive.†Jackie Wang is a senior advisor to the company. (Translated from scmp by Netease Smart Editor Robot: Wu Man)
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