China's Race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

[Menthol]

It's hardly to compare USA with China today... As USA is already decades building computer and then continue with AI, while China is just joined in the past several years.

 

[cirr]

E-shoppers embrace smart apps

2017-12-04 08:56 China Daily Editor: Li Yan

A fish-eye view of customers experiencing 'New Retail' hall of Tmall in Hangzhou in October. (Photo by Li Zhong/For China Daily)

Intelligent software helps customize product recommendations and sales

Chinese e-retailers are using artificial intelligence or AI to enhance and redefine the entire shopping experience for the consumer. [Special coverage]

In doing so, they are dispelling the notion that the newage technology is all about driverless cars, futuristic robots and supercomputers such as the Go (that beat human players in a complex board game).

For instance, Tencent Holdings Ltd, known for its killer app WeChat and video game apps, is deploying AI to recommend products and services to users of its mobile wallet WeChat Pay.

Such users win virtual red packets containing real cash for offline purchases, which can be redeemed later in online shopping at partner sites.

According to Ren Yuxin, Tencent's chief operating officer, the company is also empowering partner merchants to personalize their virtual storefronts for individual visitors. The idea is to offer real-time, tailor-made product recommendations based on a variety of factors like age, gender, location and purchasing power.

Tencent has also teamed up with China's second-largest online site JD.com, offering merchants customized content marketing opportunities via WeChat's Moments, an information-sharing function, banking on algorithms that analyze a person's interests, location and purchasing power.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the world's largest e-commerce site by transaction volume, has embedded AI into its digital infrastructure, aiming to provide more precise search results and relevant product recommendations to users, and thus drive sales.

The tech giant has developed a so-called "E-commerce Brain" to understand people's needs and deliver relevant holistic recommendations.

By adopting real-time online data to build models to predict what consumers want, the system generates recommendations for not only products they have shown an interest in but related products and other information.

"Alibaba's Brain can home in on a consumer's predilections for certain products, price ranges, brands, product specifications and other key parameters," said Zhao Binqiang, an algorithm expert at Alibaba who now leads the firm's digital marketing unit.

The software works in tandem with Alibaba's vast social media networks. Algorithms allow the system to determine correlations between content consumption and purchasing behavior.

For example, if a mother has purchased diapers via Alibaba's Taobao site, she is likely to receive maternity and child-care related content from Weitao, a micro-blogging service for brands, or from Taobao Headlines, a sister newsfeed. Via such online destinations, she might receive sponsored content on products such as infant formula or supplements.

Alibaba also introduced an AI-powered electronic assistant or chatbot called Ali Xiaomi (Ali Assistant) to handle up to 95 percent of general inquiries ranging from refunds to complaints.

According to Alibaba, the chatbot, when provided with a text or voice description or even a photo, can even help users find products, returning a list of recommendations that they could filter by brand, color and other characteristics.

A Goldman Sachs report earlier this year said, "Big data, cloud services and the coming of age of machine learning technology should continue to deliver a personalized shopping experience to consumers and targeted marketing solutions to brands and merchants."

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-04/283028.shtml

 

[cirr]

iFlytek boosts use of AI in healthcare sector

2017-12-04 09:24 China Daily Editor: Wang Zihao

People interact with robots at the 301 Hospital in Beijing. The robots provide basic medical consultation services for people. (Photo by Fan Jiashan/for China Daily)

The digital-age marriage of business with high-tech is helping improve services in China's healthcare sector. A shining example is the Anhui Provincial Hospital of Central China.[Special Coverage]

Doctors there are well served by a smart, well-qualified assistant. 'She' records patients' symptoms, reviews computerized tomography scan images and makes initial diagnosis. Only, she is not human but a robot that runs on artificial intelligence.

Developed by iFlytek Co Ltd, a leading Chinese AI company, the robot aced the written test of China's national medical licensing examination－it is a test that aspiring doctors need to pass－in November, thus becoming the first device in the world to achieve the feat. It received 456 marks, 96 more than the minimum required to qualify.

The robot is iFlytek's pilot project at the Anhui hospital. It is meant to see how the robot could help in real-life medical cases.

The initiative is part of broader efforts by China to accelerate the application of AI in healthcare. This has become necessary as China's aging society struggles to find adequate number of high-quality medical facilities.

Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek, said, "We will officially launch the robot in March 2018. It is not meant to replace doctors. Instead, it is meant to promote better people-machine cooperation so as to boost efficiency."

Unlike the AI-enabled Watson system of U.S. tech company IBM, which only focuses on the treatment for cancer and major diseases, iFlytek is exploring how to use AI to both treat cancer and train general practitioners.

"General practitioners are in severe shortage in China's rural areas. We hope AI can help more people access quality medical resources," Liu said.

Jin Xiaotao, deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said more efforts are needed to advance the application of AI in the medical sector.

In November, iFlytek was chosen by the central government as one of the four tech heavyweights to build the national AI open innovation platform by leveraging voice computing technologies.

The move put the Hefei-based company on a par with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's "Big Three" internet players.

iFlytek was formed at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1999, and has been focusing on voice recognition technologies for 18 years now.

Its AI-enabled user interface platform has accumulated 460,000 third-party developer teams in the past seven years.

In April, the company started a partnership with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, a premier medical university in the country.

The two sides set up a research center in Beijing to explore how to apply AI in medical treatments and training. Findings of research into brain science, neuroscience and other areas will be first tested in the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences' affiliated hospital before being promoted at other medical institutions.

Cao Xuetao, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said AI can help accelerate medical research by boosting computing capabilities, and it can also efficiently use limited resources by offering partly automated solutions.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-04/283043.shtml

 

[TaiShang]

Top executives: AI expected to reshape China's business sectors

By Ma Si in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-12-04

Robots work at a restaurant in Lanzhou, Northwest China's Gansu province, Dec 7, 2015. [Photo/IC]


Artificial intelligence will play an important part in China's supply-side reform as the cutting-edge technology is expected to reshape various sectors such as retail, manufacturing and healthcare, top company executives said Monday at a forum of the fourth World Internet Conference.

Robin Li, CEO of Baidu Inc, China's largest search engine provider, said in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, that in comparison with the mobile internet technology that has revolutionized consumer services, AI will exert a far bigger influence over how enterprises run their businesses.

"For instance, Baidu is leveraging AI to help supermarkets better manage their supply of fresh food by analyzing and predicting which products are most popular," Li said.

According to him, such solutions have effectively reduced the food waste ratio and boosted profit growth at pilot stores. AI can also be used to help coal mining companies step up precautionary measures against accidents and assist steel mills to automatically check product defects.

Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi Inc, said internet companies can leverage the huge number of users and devices they have accumulated in the past several years to find new growth momentum with AI.

"A key factor in the digital economy is integration. Only by integrating AI with various sectors can we give full display of the technological advancements the world has made," Lei said.

Xiaomi said it has over 85 million consumer electronic devices on its internet of things platform as of November.

Fu Sheng, CEO of Cheetah Mobile, a major mobile app publisher in China, said it is very important to have abundant application scenarios to promote the development of AI.

"Technology must be efficiently integrated into products. AI is reshaping industries which used to be far away from the internet," Fu said.

By applying image recognition technologies to Live.me, a livestreaming platform which is ranked as the most popular social-networking app on the Google Play app store in the United States, Cheetah Mobile said it can now automatically track user-generated content. The move has greatly boosted work efficiency and lowered labor costs.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/4thwic/2017-12/04/content_35199367.htm

 

[JSCh]

Yitu to power finance and medical services
By Fan Feifei | China Daily | Updated: 2017-12-04 08:22

Shanghai-based Yitu Technology, a startup engaged in artificial intelligence or AI and facial recognition technologies, is ramping up efforts to expand its presence in overseas markets.

It will apply AI to fields like urban public safety, healthcare and finance.

It plans to set up a research and development hub in Singapore, its first such facility outside of China.

The hub is expected to bolster Singapore's applications of AI in the areas of security and finance. Singapore will likely act as a gateway for the startup to expand across the world.

"Singapore is a strategic location for us to begin our overseas ventures," said Leo Zhu, CEO and founder of Yitu. Europe and Africa will be tapped next, he said.

The company's AI technologies have been used in a wide range of areas like security, finance, transportation and healthcare. It has formed partnerships with leading companies in these fields to provide integrated solutions.

For instance, its advanced facial recognition technology has been adopted by China Merchants Bank at over 1,500 outlets nationwide, enabling cash withdrawals at ATMs.

Similarly, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has adopted Yitu's technologies in its video teller machines or VTMs for online banking.

Lin Chenxi, co-founder of Yitu, said there is still a long way to go before AI plays a significant role in rejuvenating any industry.

"There is still much potential for AI's applications in the healthcare sector. That will mean an improvement not only in the efficiency of treating illnesses but also the efficiency of doctors learning about how diseases can be cured," said Lin in an interview with Global Times newspaper.

Lin told GT this will require technology breakthroughs not just in computer vision, but in natural language processing, semantic comprehension and healthcare knowledge mapping.

Data accumulated over the course of unleashing the potential in AI's healthcare applications could also influence drug development.

Its intelligent diagnostic assistance system has been under clinical trials in dozens of hospitals in Shanghai and Zhejiang province.

 

[ashok321]

China gains in race to develop AI-enabled weapons

https://asia.nikkei.com/Features/Co...05.2017&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief


HONG KONG -- There were 1,000 of them dotting the night sky, floating gracefully like glowing purple, red and blue Chinese lanterns. It was the largest-ever demonstration of drones flying in formation, a spectacle that drew gasps from the crowd gathered in Guangzhou, China, to mark the end of the Lunar New Year.

Though it had the festive air of a holiday fireworks display, the Guangzhou drone show in February would be cited less than two weeks later in a U.S. congressional hearing on advanced Chinese weaponry. In testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Elsa Kania, a former Pentagon analyst and expert on China's military technology, referred to the performance as a "demonstration of swarming techniques" with clear military applications. Chinese experts, she noted, said the same technology behind the stunning air show could be used in a deadly "distributed system with payload modules mounted on small drones."

The February drone show was a perfect illustration of China's progress in developing "dual-use" technologies -- cutting-edge tech that has both civilian and military applications. China, like the U.S., is pushing hard to develop dual-use technologies in areas from artificial intelligence and robotics to virtual reality and gene editing. Such investments can have twin payoffs for the military and the overall economy. The U.S. Department of Defense can spend its budget dollars on research into unmanned flight technology that benefits the military, for instance, and the resulting advances could end up in private-sector drones that will one day deliver parcels to e-commerce customers. The transfer of technological know-how can also flow from the private sector back to the military.

A Guangzhou light show using 1,000 drones in February was referred to in a U.S. congressional hearing as a "demonstration of swarming techniques" with military applications. © Getty Images

Kania, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, testified that China's military is seeking to use dual-use technologies such as drones, artificial intelligence and automation as "force multipliers" for its military power. If the People's Liberation Army mastered such technologies, she said, it could alter the military balance in the Asia-Pacific and intensify the challenges facing the U.S., Japan, South Korea and their other allies in the region.

Swarming drones are just the start. Other Star Wars-like weapons that are raising concerns across the Pacific include laser-guided bombs, "jammers" that disrupt satellite communications, particle-beam armaments, and electromagnetic and microwave instruments of destruction. Richard Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, spotted Chinese fiber-optic lasers -- a technology vital for laser combat satellites -- at an exhibition this year in Abu Dhabi. Other experts say China would like to establish base stations on the moon with both military and civilian objectives.

"China is progressing in a very wide range of major military technological megaprojects," Andrew Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, U.S. military supremacy is no longer unchallenged -- a fact that has massive implications for the U.S. economy and its security alliances around the world. China's advances in such futuristic technologies -- and U.S. efforts to counter them -- will have ripple effects on the entire Asian region. Increasing tensions could draw in Japan as it reconsiders its military stance.

Boys do virtual battle at the China International Big Data Industry Expo in the southwestern city of Guiyang in May. © Getty Images

For years, Asia has been the beneficiary of relative peace, which means that it has been able to dedicate its burgeoning reserves to the prosperity of its people rather than to weapons spending. Now, some are asking if this is about to change.

Ash Carter, U.S. defense secretary under President Barack Obama, described Asia earlier this year as "the single most consequential region for America's future." "It will be necessary for the U.S. to continue to sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice," he said, adding that China was "far and away the largest transgressor of the principle of nonmilitarization."

This little-acknowledged arms race is part of a technological competition between the two largest economies on the planet. While tempting to portray that competition as the 21st-century equivalent of the Cold War 60 years ago, such analogies are inaccurate because the nature of war has fundamentally changed.


New technologies "will perhaps give future warfare unmanned, intangible and silent" characteristics, the most recent edition of "The Science of Military Strategy," a Chinese textbook, states. China is hastening the advent of such warfare based partly on its estimates of how the U.S. military will look in the future. One study cited in the PLA Daily last year suggested that by 2040, robots and other unmanned systems will outnumber people within the American armed forces.

Today's conflicts increasingly take place in what military parlance labels a "gray zone." In the past, war was waged between governments or identifiable groups with clear motivations, but now nonstate actors or even individuals can launch what would traditionally be considered acts of war without revealing who they are or even what their objectives might be. If, for example, a military communications satellite is hacked, is it an act of war? And how does a country retaliate if no one claims credit for it?

Soar dragon, divine eagle

In February, a research paper called "China's Technology Transfer Strategy" detailed the risks of China's accessing "the crown jewels of U.S. innovation." Produced for the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), an arm of the Defense Department, the report depicts a future in which supply chains for U.S. military equipment and services are increasingly owned by Chinese companies. It said that 10% of Chinese venture investing recently went into U.S. tech companies, adding that this was "only a piece of a larger story of massive technology transfer from the U.S. to China which has been ongoing for decades."

In the past, research grants were awarded in China on the basis of party loyalty. That policy helped drive out eminent scientists, said the physicist Shoucheng Zhang, who himself left the country to teach at Stanford University. But now grants are more merit-based. One government-sponsored think tank says that it is no longer required to have firewalls -- a major exception in a country where internet access is restricted. Officials in Beijing are beginning to understand that blocking web access is an impediment to leading-edge research, says Xiaodong Wang, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing.

Beijing's progress in dual-use tech is particularly striking when it comes to unmanned vehicles. Kania described some of these vehicles -- with names such as Xiang Long (soar dragon), Li Jian (sharp sword) and Shen Diao (divine eagle) -- as "supersonic stealth vehicles which are on track to expand the PLA's capacity to engage in long-distance precision strikes and could alter the military balance in the region."

China's technological advances, particularly in AI, mean "the PLA may have the potential to mimic, match or even exceed U.S. advances," she said.

Many experts believe this is already happening. China has moved well beyond imitation, which means that there is little the U.S. can do at this point. "They've gone from a phase of making mimic-type systems to really moving to leap ahead in advanced technologies," said Timothy Grayson, president of Fortitude Mission Research, in a congressional appearance.

Midea Group. Among potential competitors in China is Shanghai Siasun Robot & Automation, which came out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to Henrik Christensen, director of the Contextual Robotics Institute and a professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego.

Alibaba Group Holding, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The new research facility aims to advance the study and applications of quantum theory and develop new platforms for information security, connectivity and computing.

Aliyun has become among the most potentially lucrative units in Alibaba, an outcome of Beijing's preference to work closely with a few companies and help them grow. "The Chinese government seems to prefer a few centralized systems as opposed to enabling technologies to be distributed throughout the economy," Snell testified. "That allows them to control investment and access a little more tightly in contrast to a U.S. model."

It is a relationship that recalls earlier days in the U.S., when DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the Pentagon -- worked closely with universities such as Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and research institutes such as Bell Labs. Such collaborations led to breakthrough technologies, including the internet, AI and robotics, speech recognition and GPS systems. But the ties between the Pentagon and the U.S. tech industry have weakened since their peak in the 1970s and 1980s.

The U.S. has been trying to re-establish that sort of productive relationship, an initiative that began under former Defense Secretary Carter. His successor, James Mattis, paid his first visit to Silicon Valley in August -- making him the first Trump cabinet member to do so.

Mattis' trip included a stop at DIUx, the Pentagon's two-year-old innovation hub, which has awarded $100 million in contracts for projects in AI, autonomous machines and space technology. "We will get better at integrating the advances in AI that are being taken here in the Valley into the U.S. military," he said.

If Mattis and the Pentagon succeed in repairing ties with Silicon Valley, the result could be more innovations that make consumers' lives easier. But it could also accelerate an arms race that will usher in a new era of warfare powered by robots, AI and swarming drones.

 

[ashok321]

Tiny Singapore is active but not Modi's India.

 

[cirr]

China gains in race to develop AI-enabled weapons

https://asia.nikkei.com/Features/Cover-story/China-gains-in-race-to-develop-AI-enabled-weapons?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBB 12.05.2017&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief


HONG KONG -- There were 1,000 of them dotting the night sky, floating gracefully like glowing purple, red and blue Chinese lanterns. It was the largest-ever demonstration of drones flying in formation, a spectacle that drew gasps from the crowd gathered in Guangzhou, China, to mark the end of the Lunar New Year.

The above is nothing compared with what's reported in the following:

http://news.ifeng.com/a/20171205/53860628_0.shtml

 

[cirr]

Chinese university develops soft-body robotic manta ray

2017-12-05 15:50 CGTN Editor: Mo Hong'e

A soft-bodied robot that can swim like a manta ray has been created at China's Zhejiang University. (Photo/CGTN)

A soft-bodied robot that can swim like a manta ray has been created at China's Zhejiang University.

The less than 20 centimeter robots that can swim as fast as six centimeters per second have been developed for information gathering in lakes and oceans.

They can also closely observe marine life and survey fishery resources without disturbing them, said project leader Li Tiefeng.

Robots are increasingly being constructed from soft materials to make them more resilient, but many still need to be powered by rigid circuit boards and motors, something this robotic manta ray does not have.

The secret is its soft belly which flexes when powered by electricity and acts exactly like a muscle.

Li said the new material is called Dielectric Elastomer (DE), a kind of artificial muscle that is deformed by electrical signals.

This material consists of two layers of film as electrodes, sandwiching the middle layer of conductive hydrogel.

When voltage is applied to the electrode, it attracts electrons, making the rest of the hydrogel positively charged.

The gel is then attracted to negatively charged electrons, and the two dielectric films will be compressed to the center and the middle layer will be squeezed.

Using DE underwater was thought to be impossible, because the thick electrical insulation required would have hampered flexibility.

But the team at Zhejiang University came up with a counter-intuitive solution. They took advantage of the water's own conductive properties as the negative electrode for the entire circuit system.

The hydrogel part is positively charged. The gel is then attracted to negatively charged electrons in the water outside the robot, squeezing the fish body in between and causing movement of the fins.

The final result is that the electricity pulses make the fins flap up and down and move the fish forward.

The technology may free designers from the rigid constraints of construction, making new types of wearable devices or soft exoskeletons possible.

For example, knee pads that are applied with this technology could help improve stability among elderly people while gloves using this tech could give users a stronger grip.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-05/283311.shtml

 

[JSCh]

Cheetah banks on artificial intelligence to spread reach
By Ma Si | China Daily | Updated: 2017-12-05 07:21

A Cheetah Mobile stand at an internet and information security expo in Beijing. Cheetah Mobile is stepping up efforts to expand its presence in overseas markets. [Photo/VCG]

Chinese internet and mobile app publisher Cheetah Mobile Inc is stepping up efforts to expand its presence in overseas countries by upgrading its products and services with artificial intelligence technologies.

Fu Sheng, CEO of the Beijing-based company, said it is very important to have abundant application scenarios and a large number of users to achieve breakthroughs in AI and this is exactly in line with the company's edge.

By applying image recognition technologies to Live.me, a live streaming platform which is ranked as the most popular social-networking app on Google Play app store in the United States, the company said it can now automatically track user-generated content. The move has greatly boosted work efficiency and lowered labor costs.

Cheetah Mobile has also invested $400 million into an AI startup called Beijing Orion Star Technology Co Ltd, in a move to beef up its technology prowess.

Unlike the first-wave of Chinese internet players such as Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd which rely on the domestic market to thrive, Cheetah Mobile gets 75.4 percent of its nearly 600 million monthly active users from abroad. The firm has managed to achieve that within just six years.

The Beijing-based company started to zero in on overseas markets after competition in the domestic market intensified in 2012. It worked hard to adapt itself to foreign markets.

"Our strategy is straight-forward: develop utility apps, which are hardly subject to cultural influences and enjoy universal, steady demand," Chen Bo, a software developer at Cheetah said.

The Beijing-based company quickly gained a presence by rolling out Clean Master, the Android junk cleaning app, and CM Security, which protects smartphones with anti-virus software and privacy.

But unexpectedly, cultural obstacles still popped up. "Users in the Middle East complained against an ad on our app because the girls on that ad wore off-shoulder tops," Chen said. "We then worked hard to localize our apps as per overseas sensibilities."

Cheetah Mobile found advertisement revenue hard to come by as users generally don't use e-tools and apps of the kind it develops every day. As a result it has been transforming itself into a content business through research and acquisitions.

"Apps that provide content and services, such as social media apps, live streaming apps, maps, mobile payments apps and online shopping apps have become the new trend for Chinese developers who are targeting emerging and developed markets," said Wei Fangdan, CEO of Baijingapp, an online community of more than 40,000 domestic app developers who have global aspirations.

In the third quarter of this year, Cheetah Mobile generated 154 million yuan ($23.4 million) in operating profit, marking a 303 percent year-on-year growth.

 

[cirr]

China showcases AI breakthroughs as WIC concludes

2017-12-06 08:59 Global Times Editor: Li Yan

Chinese tech could become benchmark

Rising artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, big data and open source platforms have boosted technological breakthroughs in China, showcasing the country's impressive and innovative Internet development, said experts attending an international conference here. [Special Coverage]

A slew of breakthroughs have been made in the information technology (IT) sector, with 60 percent of technology achievements unveiled at the 4th World Internet Conference (WIC) made by Chinese companies. The three-day conference ended on Tuesday in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang Province.

"This progress reflects the overall development of China's IT sector," Wu Hequan, president of the Internet Society of China, told the Global Times following the closing ceremony of the WIC.

The achievements include Huawei Technologies Co's 5G mobile data system that has yet to go into commercial use; Alibaba Group Holdings' self-learning cloud computing system that might be used to ease traffic congestion; and the world's fastest supercomputer the Sunway TaihuLight, which can make 18.9 quadrillion calculations per second, developed by the National Supercomputer Center in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province.

The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer's earthquake simulation is this year's recipient of the Gordon Bell Prize which is awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery. The association said the simulation program might help predict and prepare for earthquakes.

Over the past five years, the Chinese government has established guidelines to strengthen China's Internet development and its cyber governance, according to the China Internet Development Report 2017, released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies on Monday.

The country has seen its network infrastructure grow rapidly over the past few years. By June 2017, the number of broadband users reached 322 million and 4G users grew to 890 million, the report showed.

The number of patents issued in the computer, communication and other electronic equipment sector reached 227,365 by the end of 2016, the highest in the world.

"While the Internet sector maintains its growth momentum, the era of AI and 5G have already become a reality and will be seen as disruptive technologies," a senior executive from Huawei, who asked not to be identified, told the Global Times on Monday. Huawei invests 10 percent of its annual revenues in research and development, he said.

"The IT sector in China has accumulated experiences in embracing AI, big data platforms and open source platforms," he told the Global Times.

In some other sectors like supercomputing, Chinese research teams are now in a leading position in scientific discoveries. The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer shows Chinese technology could one day become a benchmark, Yang Guangwen, director of the project, told the Global Times in an earlier interview.

Innovation and openness

China, which has benefited greatly from the IT boom, has now become an active leader in further cooperating with the international community in Internet development and management, Ren Xianliang, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, told a press briefing after the closing ceremony of the WIC.

During the conference, some foreign industry representatives said that they were amazed by China's innovative spirit and the speed of growth in the world's second-largest economy. Some have said they intend to team up with Chinese tech companies in more sectors.

The use of AI technologies in products such as DJI's consumer drones are phenomenal, RJ Pittman, chief product officer of eBay, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"They're one of the leaders in AI, they're using that technology to make these products more fun, more useful, more consumer-friendly. It's absolutely a breakthrough," Pittman said, adding that there will be tremendous opportunities in the AI sector and eBay is looking forward to working more with Chinese tech firms. EBay will continue to strengthen partnership with its Chinese counterparts with more domains beyond e-commerce, he added.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-06/283356.shtml

 

[TaiShang]

The Beijing-based company quickly gained a presence by rolling out Clean Master, the Android junk cleaning app, and CM Security, which protects smartphones with anti-virus software and privacy.

Clean Master is China made?

I did not know it.

***

Sogou debuts real-time speech translation system
By Guo Yiming



Sogou's exhibition booth at the Light of the Internet Expo during the 4th World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China. [Photo by Guo Yiming/China.org.cn]

Speaking during a panel discussion via the company's new translation system, Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan said the product enables users to hear the content of his speech translated into English in both male and female voices with the click of button.

The new system can also analyze and replicate features of the speaker's voice, thus translating both semantically and phonetically.

This comes after last year's conference when Wang stunned the crowd with a similar real-time translation system which transcribed spoken Mandarin into English text.

Sogou raised US$585 million in its initial public offering after debuting on the New York Stock Exchange earlier last month in a bid to accelerate its AI development.

Wang said he hopes the new product will help to enhance cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding.

A subsidiary of the NASDAQ-listed Sohu, Sogou is also known for its popular Pinyin input system, used every day by millions of desktop and smartphone users to type Chinese characters using Latin-alphabet keyboards.

Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sogou [Photo provided to China.org.cn]

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2017-12/06/content_50088784_2.htm

 

[cirr]

Facial recognition identifies unlicensed drivers in Shanghai

2017-12-06 14:56 Xinhua Editor: Mo Hong'e

It used to be a difficult task for Chinese traffic police to catch people driving without a valid license, but in Shanghai high-tech systems have proven to be efficient in handling such traffic violations.

Some 835 drivers have been caught and penalized for driving without a valid license since a citywide traffic regulation campaign began in 2016, Shanghai traffic police announced on Tuesday.

Police said a combination of facial recognition, big data and other high-tech solutions have assisted them in identifying unlicensed drivers.

Some drivers whose licenses had been revoked or temporarily suspended previously took their chances and continued to drive, presuming that the police would not find out.

However, a facial recognition system now compares and analyzes every driver's face with their profile information and detects any violations, allowing Shanghai traffic police to keep an eye on all motorists.

Officers said that none of the 835 drivers tried to drive again after they were caught.

Shanghai has adopted the facial recognition technology to assist with various traffic violations including jaywalking and driving in the wrong direction.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-06/283449.shtml

 

[JSCh]

Honda, SenseTime to pursue joint R&D
Source:Global Times Published: 2017/12/7 22:28:39

Honda R&D Co, a subsidiary of Japanese Honda Motor Co, announced Thursday that it signed a five-year contract with SenseTime Group, a China-based company that specializes in artificial intelligence (AI).

The two will focus on joint research and development (R&D) in automated driving technologies by combining SenseTime's moving object recognition technologies with the Japanese automaker's AI algorithms, according to a post on Honda's website on Thursday.

Their R&D cooperation will also expand into robotics, said the post.

 

[onebyone]

Beijing is harnessing government and commercial entities in pursuit of a once-in-a-generation technological kingmaker.

China has made no secret of its ambitions to lead the world in artificial intelligence, nor of the military and geopolitical advantage it hopes to gain from this rapidly advancing technology. A closer look at Beijing’s whole-of-nation AI strategy shows the challenge to the United States — and suggests what America must do lest it be eclipsed in this latest round of great-power competition.

China’s vision came into focus over the summer with the release of the New Generation AI Development Plan, which articulates an ambitious agenda to “lead the world” in the field. Chinese leaders, no longer content to copy Western technologies, are aiming to become the world’s “premier AI innovation center,” advancing an “innovation-driven” strategy for civilian and military development.

The implementation of this agenda will be a whole-of-government endeavor involving 15 central agencies and a growing number of local governments. Their efforts will foster the growth of a robust AI industry and ecosystem and pour billions into longer-term research and development of next-generation technologies. The plan will tap the dynamism of national tech champions, such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and iFlytek, that have been leading China’s AI revolution.

Under the national strategy of “military-civil fusion,” their breakthroughs can also be put to military use.

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It is telling that the agencies responsible for the plan include the Central Military-Civil Fusion Development Commission and both the Equipment Development Department and Science and Technology Commission of the Central Military Commission, or CMC. The strategic advisory committee responsible for supporting the new plan’s implementation also includes several PLA civilians (in uniform). And China’s AIagenda has the very highest support, in the country’s leader — and CMC Chairman — Xi Jinping, who has urged his country to advance military innovation and highlighted the strategic significance of AI.

PLA thinkers expect AIto reshape the character of war itself, from today’s ‘informatized’ (信息化) ways of warfare into ‘intelligentized’ (智能化) warfare.

PLA thinkers expect AI to reshape the character of war itself, from today’s “informatized” (信息化) ways of warfare into “intelligentized” (智能化) warfare, in which AI is critical. According to Lt. Gen. Liu Guozhi, who leads the CMC Science and Technology Commission, AI could accelerate military transformation, reshaping military units’ programming, operational styles, equipment systems, and models of combat power generation, ultimately leading to a profound military revolution. He warns, “facing disruptive technology, [we] must…seize the opportunity to change paradigms. If you don’t disrupt, you’ll be disrupted!” So the PLA is pursuing intelligent and autonomous unmanned systems; AI-enabled data fusion, information processing, and intelligence analysis; war-gaming, simulation, and training; defense, offense, and command in information warfare; and intelligent support to command decision-making, among other applications. In particular, the CMC Joint Staff Department has called for the PLA to leverage the “tremendous potential” of AI in planning, decision support, and operational command. This fall, in his report at the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping himself called for the acceleration of this agenda of military “intelligentization.”

Given this high-level focus on defense and military innovation, the PLA is funding and the Chinese defense industry is pursuing a range of research and development, while Chinese defense academics start to explore and experiment with new potential concepts, including through war-gaming. As AI and robotics start to become more pervasive on the future battlefield, certain PLA thinkers even anticipate the approach of a battlefield “singularity.” At such a point, human cognition might no longer be able to keep pace with the speed of decision and tempo of combat. That could require that humans no longer remain directly “in the loop” but instead shift to command and supervisory roles. Certainly, current limitations in the capabilities of AI systems may preclude higher degrees of autonomy and automation for the time being, but there will be missions and contexts in which they are desirable or imperative. This is already is the case in air and missile defense and could soon be for cyber operations.

Although there have been predictions and expectations that authoritarian regimes may opt for fully automated approaches, while neglecting the human factor, PLA thinkers have, in fact, highlighted the importance of human-machine collaboration and manned-unmanned teaming. Lt. Gen. Liu has even anticipated that human-machine hybrid intelligence will be the highest form of future intelligence. The PLAcould also be unwilling to remove humans from key aspects of command decision-making because of the preference for centralized authority and concerns over controllability. Concurrently, the PLA could face considerable human challenges in its introduction of such new, highly complex systems.

The U.S. military must also focus on leveraging its enduring advantage in the human element of military power, which will face even more complex challenges in an age of automation and autonomous systems.

At this point, the future trajectory of U.S.-China strategic competition in AI remains uncertain. However, it is clear that the U.S. military must recognize the PLA’s emergence as a true peer competitor and reevaluate the nature of U.S.-China military technological competition accordingly. As the PLA attempts to overtake, rather than just catch up with or match, U.S. progress in these emerging capabilities, it will be vital to understand and take into account the PLA’s evolving approach and advances. For instance, since the locus of innovation has shifted to the private sector in these emerging technologies, China’s implementation of military-civil fusion in AI could provide the PLA a structural advantage in rapidly adapting the latest advances for military purposes.

U.S. competitive strategy and defense innovation initiatives should be informed by a more nuanced understanding of the PLA’s strategic thinking on and development of military applications of AI. The U.S. military should also continue to explore the risks and advantages of developing “counter-AI” capabilities. While seeking to develop appropriate concepts of operations for the AIrevolution, the U.S. military must also focus on leveraging its enduring advantage in the human element of military power. This remains vital and faces even more complex challenges in an age of automation and autonomous systems.

The future trajectory of U.S. defense and military innovation will depend upon a closer partnership with the private sector and the pursuit of long-term strategies to increase national competitiveness in AI, especially boosting spending on research and education. U.S.-China military and strategic competition could turn on their relative success in using this disruptive technology to increase national power and military capabilities.

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• Elsa B. Kania is an Adjunct Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, where she focuses on Chinese defense innovation and emerging technologies. She is the author of “Battlefield Singularity: Artificial Intelligence, Military Revolution, ... FULL BIO