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China's Race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

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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
Oh, how much it must have hurt the author to think -- let alone write -- that. I wish I could have seen the expression on her face.
 
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Google to open AI center in Beijing

2017-12-13 14:46

chinadaily.com.cn Editor: Liang Meichen

Global technology giant Google announced on Wednesday the opening of its artificial intelligence (AI) center in China during its second developers conference in Shanghai.

The new AI center will be based in Beijing. A small group of researchers supported by hundreds of Chinese engineers will be working there. Basic AI research will be the main area that the center will be focusing on.

Li Feifei, chief scientist of AI and machine learning at Google Cloud, will lead the research group of this new center. The center will seek cooperation with the local academia and other possible partners since China is one of the world leaders in AI technology development with ample supply of top talents in this area, she said.

"The center is a corporate-level effort. It is one of the first steps for Google to carry out long-term research in the Chinese market," she said.

The preparation for this center started in January. A number of Google's teams, such as the one for Tensor Flow - computation using data flow graphs for scalable machine learning, have taken part in the establishment of this center.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-13/284324.shtml
 
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Domestic big data companies search for British partners

2017-12-14 09:31

China Daily Editor: Huang Mingrui

Big data companies from China are on the hunt for cutting-edge technology from the United Kingdom that can be upscaled and commercialized for use in the country's huge domestic market.

A group of about 15 Chinese companies have started a weeklong visit to the UK in search of such partnerships. The enterprises have already visited leading British universities and research labs, including University College London and the Future Cities Catapult.

"We anticipate strong demand from our clients for implementing cutting-edge innovation, so we are in the UK to look for that expertise," said Xin Haowen, deputy general manager of Sichuan Wisesoft System Integration, which uses big-data technology to provide smart city solutions.

Zhou Yuanbo, secretary-general of the Chengdu Big Data Industry Alliance, said China and the UK's data work could complement each other.

"China has an abundance of consumer data available, which forms the basis for data analytics development," Zhou said. "The UK has the infrastructure, talent, and expertise to produce cutting-edge research and technology."

The trip, organized by the UK's Department for International Trade, follows successful visits made by British big data companies to China last year and earlier this year. Two British companies on the 2016 trip are now close to setting up offices in China, and another UK company is working with a Chinese supplier.

Big data is one focus of the "golden era" of China-UK relations that began in 2015 with President Xi Jinping's state visit to the UK. It is also an important part of the UK economy and a major component of its latest industrial strategy, which was unveiled last month.

Meanwhile, China plans to grow sales from its big data sector to 1 trillion yuan ($151 billion) by 2020, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Existing bilateral cooperation on big data includes the Chengdu-based big data company BBD launching a London office last year, and joint research into the next generation of big data applications carried out by Chinese telecom giant Huawei and Imperial College, which began in 2014.

Despite these early results, large-scale big data cooperation has yet to take off.

Andrew Cockburn, head of trade for technology and smart cities at the Department for International Trade, said mentality is a part of the challenge, and bilateral visits will help to alter perceptions.

"Many British data science companies seem to default to the US, but that's not always the right opportunity for them," he said.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-14/284411.shtml
 
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China to boost competitiveness in AI

2017-12-15 08:58 Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

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Visitors interact with an intelligent robot at the fourth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Tongxiang City of east China's Zhejiang Province, Dec. 4, 2017. (Photo: China News Service/Du Yang)

China has moved to forge new competitive advantages in artificial intelligence (AI), with goals to allow homegrown businesses to take on global rivals by 2020.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Thursday released an action plan to substantially improve the emerging technology in the next three years, eying breakthroughs in basic research and wide application in multiple areas ranging from smart automobiles to robots and drones.

AI and manufacturing will be deeply integrated, according to the document.

Platforms of intelligent connected vehicles will be reliable and safe enough to support highly automated driving, and large-scale production and application of smart robots used for household and public services will be achieved.

Specific targets were also unveiled in areas including facial recognition, AI medical diagnosis, speech recognition and smart translation.

The MIIT promised more policy support, including special funds, talent cultivation and a better business environment. Measures will also be rolled out to build industry clusters, set up key laboratories and encourage data sharing.

AI is developing rapidly in China. From Internet giants to startups, an increasing number of tech firms are geared up to stretch wings in the area. Google has announced a new AI research center that primarily focuses on basic research in Beijing.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/12-15/284556.shtml
 
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Baifendian releases China's 1st industrial AI decision-making system

2017-12-15 15:49

chinadaily.com.cn Editor: Gu Liping

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Su Meng, chairman and CEO of Baifendian Group. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Beijing-based big data technology and application services provider Baifendian Group announced Thursday it has launched China's first industrial artificial intelligence decision-making system, aiming to help companies span the intelligent divide and drive better business decisions.

Su Meng, chairman and CEO of Baifendian, said the company will drive the development of AI technologies to meet the growing need for intelligent analysis and application of data, enabling enterprises to efficiently manage data assets.

"For enterprises and organizations, the ultimate intelligence is to be able to solve problems. Powered by big data and AI, intelligent decisions will be the direction for future corporate decision-making evolution," Su added.

Dubbed Deep Matrix, the new system, which incorporates big data and AI technologies, supports the automatic identification, judgment and inference of complex business issues and then is able to make decisions and predictions.

To better cater to different clients' specific needs, the company released five application products, including the intelligent security analysis system Deep Finder, intelligent government decision-making system Deep Governor, intelligent multimedia service system Deep Editor, smart marketing system Deep Creator and smart manufacturing system Deep Sensor.

Su said under the support of Baifendian's system, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has improved its decision-making on automobile recalls.

"Previously, the AQSIQ Defective Product Administrative Center had to organize more than 10 experts to spend hundreds of hours on the quarterly consultation. Now, they have a real-time decision-making system, which only needs one person to work with the machine," Su added.

Buoyed by supportive government policies, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the company has expanded the business to overseas markets. According to the company, it has established national-level big data and AI platforms in countries and regions in Africa and Latin America, to empower local governments' social governance and services.

On Thursday, Baifendian also announced a strategic partnership with Chinese e-commerce titan JD, saying it will cooperate with the latter's cloud unit at the technical and market level to better meet different customer needs.

Founded in 2009, Baifendian Group has raised 1 billion yuan ($151 million), including the latest 400-million-yuan Series D round of financing led by Everbright Securities in 2015, according to company figures. Currently, it has provided big data services to more than 2,000 companies, including Huawei Technologies and TCL Corporation.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-15/284676.shtml
 
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Scientist Andrew brings AI to manufacturing industry

2017-12-15 14:26

chinadaily.com.cn Editor: Liang Meichen

Artificial intelligence pioneer Andrew Ng launched a new AI company Landing.ai on Thursday.

On the same day, the company announced a strategic cooperation with electronics contractor Foxconn to develop a program that aims to bring AI and machine learning technologies to the manufacturing industry.

According to Ng's statement, his company is developing a series of programs to help enterprises transform for the age of AI, including providing new technologies to optimize companies' organizations structures, train employees, and more. The company's businesses will start in the manufacturing industry.

Ng said the AI technology is conductive to manufacturing enterprises to improve quality testing process, shorten products' design cycle, remove bottleneck of supply chain, reduce waste on materials and energy and raise output.

AI will revitalize manufacturing industry and generate jobs in the industry, he said. I In the age of AI, the employees need to accept new skills training to fit jobs that will be more complex than before, Ng added.

Landing.ai will provide solutions to some employees who are likely to be laid off, Ng said. Currently, the company is discussing the training plan with some potential partners including local governments.

Landing.ai is Andrew Ng's second AI program. Earlier, he built an AI-based online courses learning platform Deeplearning.ai. As a well-known figure on AI and machine learning areas, he participated in the Google Brain project and worked for Baidu's AI group.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-15/284661.shtml
 
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China to build first big data service center in FPD Industry

2017-12-16 09:29 Xinhua Editor: Li Yan

China's first big data service center in the flat panel display (FPD) industry will be built in central China's Hubei Province to help boost the industry's development.

The center will be set up under cooperation between China Video Industry Association and the Administration Committee of Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development zone.

It will collect figures from the industry's output capacity, delivery, business cycle index, and panel transaction information, said Dong Min, vice president of All View Cloud, a partner in the project.

The center will also help gather manufacturing information not only about Chinese FDP factories, but overseas plants in countries such as the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Singapore.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-16/284710.shtml
 
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New tech to read human emotion via camera

2017-12-17 07:38

Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

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A Chinese firm announced Saturday it had developed technology to efficiently detect human emotion, even through using cameras on mobile phones.

The technology, the first of its kind in China, can detect and analyze human emotion in videos and images captured by cameras, according to a China Electronics Technology Group Corporation statement.

"Human facial data, collected by cameras enhanced by the software, will be transferred to a server and analyzed through algorithms," the statement said. "It can read a person's cardiac rate based on changes of color in a certain area on a human face."

It is based on the development of facial recognition technology and the expansion of databases.

The company's facial recognition software has recognized over 98.23 percent of 500,000 human faces it has tested so far, the company said. The accuracy rate reached 99.5 percent when the software was used to identify certain facial features and compared them with different faces.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-17/284771.shtml
 
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Baidu, China Life Unveils $2 Billion Tech Investment Fund

Search-engine operator Baidu Inc. and state-owned insurer China Life Insurance on Friday signed an agreement to jointly set up a 14 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) investment fund, targeting internet, artificial intelligence and other tech-related projects.

The fund will be managed by Baidu Capital, the tech giants’ investment arm, and focus on middle to later stage investment, according to the agreement.

Baidu and China Life entered a strategic partnership in February to jointly develop solutions to adopt AI, big data, cloud-computing technologies in financial area.

https://k.caixinglobal.com/#anchor1513347287000
 
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China launches first AI lab for broadcasting

2017-12-19 07:10

Xinhua Editor: Wang Fan

China's first artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory for broadcasting opened on Monday.

The lab, in Changsha, capital of the central province of Hunan, is a project between the provincial broadcaster and leading Chinese AI firm iFlytek.

The lab will focus on research on products to help journalists transcribe their Chinese-language interview recordings and produce tailor-made broadcasting programs, said sources with the broadcaster, the Hunan Broadcasting System.

Hu Yu, chief executive of iFlytek, said the lab will show how AI can ease the workload of journalists and make their work more efficient. The AI technology, through smart speakers and robots, can offer an interactive experience for users.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/12-18/284945.shtml
 
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another brand new ai chip startup


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AI Chip Maker ThinkForce Raises RMB 450 Million from YITU Tech, Yunfeng Fund, Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital

PR Newswire Asia
Dec 18, 2017

SHANGHAI, Dec. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ThinkForce, a Shanghai-headquartered startup company specializing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) semiconductor chips, announced RMB 450 million in Series A funding. YITU Tech, Yunfeng Fund, Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital participated in the fund raised.

AI chips have become an important area of focus in the industry and have attracted venture capitalists across the world. YITU Tech's strategic investment on ThinkForce showcased YITU's commitment to developing an AI ecosystem.


ThinkForce is staffed by a strong technical team to ensure successful integration of technology and industrialization


As one of the leading startup companies in AI Chip R&D and manufacturing, ThinkForce possess world-class talents with years of experience not only in management, as well as technical and product development capability. In fact, the core members of the team were directly responsible for some of the most successful semiconductor chipset launches that can be found in products such as the IBM PowerPC, Sony PS3, Microsoft XBOX and the world's fastest 56G Serdes, etc., resulted in billions of USD sales. With a proven track record, ThinkForce is posed to lead the way in the development and advancement of AI Chips.

ThinkForce plans to launch its AI chip based on the industry leading semiconductor process technology, "ManyCore" architecture. Developed in-house by ThinkForce, it helps to complete and optimize the AI cloud virtualization scheduling during the chip-level implementation. Furthermore, when combined with self-developed firmware and TFDL software SDK, "ManyCore" can accelerate computation for various neural network models. Currently, the efficiency of ThinkForce accelerators is between 90% and 95%. When compared with Nvidia mainstream computing card, it is over five times more efficient in power consumption and cost savings. With extensive experience in silicon development, ThinkForce is also able to minimize the risk of production error while optimizing the chip's performance and power consumption.

Additionally, ThinkForce has now partnered with industry leaders including IBM and Cadence.

AI era is the "Intelligent algorithm in the chip" era

While the development of AI chips is still in its infancy, the complexity and momentum in technology innovation will continue to generate breakthroughs constantly.

"The AI era is the Intelligent algorithm in the chip era", said Zhang Zhenning, vice president of marketing at ThinkForce. An AI chip includes the architecture of an AI algorithm model calculation and the design to schedule the calculation. As a leading company with tremendous expertise in the area of cloud computing, YITU Tech will definitely help Thinkforce to strengthen its industry competitiveness through the strategic partnership.

As capital investment on AI is on the rise, YITU Tech has also been quite active in terms of investments and activities. YITU Tech has recently engaged in a joint investment with IDG Capital in AccutarBio, an international pharmaceutical company. This is one of the largest investments in the AI pharmaceutical field in China thus far.

"Our collaboration with ThinkForce is a strong statement of our pure interest and enthusiasm for cutting-edge technologies and scientific researches in the AI sector. We believe that Thinkforce's talented team and its years of experience and reputation in this field will create multiplier effects and improve efficiency during our common exploration in AI technologies. We are facing global competition in the making of AI chips, and we need a strategic plan domestically in China in order to stay abreast. We believe ThinkForce will contribute to the growth and prosperity of China's overall AI strategy initiative", said Jiao Hui Ru, director of technology strategy at YITU Tech.

About ThinkForce

Shanghai ThinkForce Electronic Technology Co. Ltd is founded by experts from silicon design, software algorithm and system development in 2017. We aspire to provide world class intelligent semiconductors with leading AI algorithms and most advanced silicon art, upon which we build AI hardware platform and offer turn-key industry solution. By cooperating with vertical industry leaders, we will jointly build the eco-system and the future of AI. With the support from our business partners and top VCs, we will offer the most intelligent calculation power with our product roadmap.

About YITU Technology

YITU Technology (YITU) is a pioneer in practical artificial intelligence (AI) research and innovation that provides advanced AI-based business solutions to build a safer, better and healthier world. YITU boasts a world-class R&D team that drives industrial development to find comprehensive solutions in the areas of machine vision, speech and language understanding.
 
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by Xinhua Writers Xiong Maoling, Liu Si and Huang Kun

BEIJING, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- "China is a rising country of AI work and research," said Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence (AI)and Machine Learning (ML) at Google Cloud, calling for enhanced AI cooperation between major countries.

Li made the remarks in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua at Google's Beijing office. Just last week, Li announced that Google would launch a new AI research center in Beijing, as part of its AI First strategy.

WHY GOOGLE AI CHINA CENTER?

When asked what prompted Google to make the decision to open its center in the Chinese capital, Li said: "We all recognize the importance of China because of its talent, because of the incredible creativity and innovation that are already going on here."

The Google AI China Center, the first of its kind in Asia, will primarily focus on basic AI research.

"We've seen China is paying a lot of attention to AI in terms of research, entrepreneurship, usage in industry as well as government support," Li said, noting that the Chinese government issued a plan for the development of "the new generation of AI" in July, and recently announced a three-year action plan.

"China is really a rising major country, with more prominent global responsibility in technology, politics and culture," said the leading AI expert, adding that promoting cooperation between major countries will bring "extraordinary benefits" for all human beings.

She acknowledged that AI is viewed by some as a new source of compeition between countries. However, as a scientist, Li said she believes science has no national boundary, and she hopes to see more cooperation and communication across borders.

Li also noted there is a shortage worldwide for AI talents, no matter in the United States or China.

"I hope to mobilize global talents to participate in the research of AI because it's such an important science and technology field," she said.

When asked about the potential for women in the field, the female scientist said more work is needed. "AI will change the world, but who will change AI? We want AI to be more inclusive and diverse."

HISTORIC MOMENT: FROM LAB TO INDUSTRY

Li, who is also the Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, has made a successful transition from academics.

"I've seen the historical moment AI is going through: it has stepped out of the lab and has entered the stage of industrial application," she told Xinhua.

Li is certainly at the heart of the historical moment.

"I hope to bring AI technology to the most people and the most industries," she said, adding that this will have a profound impact on day-to-day living.

Known for AI research in computer vision, Li said technology in this area has become relatively mature, especially facial recognition and object tracking technology, which have been used in smart shopping, driverless cars and medical imaging and pathological analysis.

Potential application scenarios for AI are beyond count, Li said.

Financial services, media and entertainment, business, medical treatment, energy, education and manufacturing, among others, are deemed especially ripe for future growth.

"AI's promoting for the development of these industries has just started, but look at the massive demand."

What about entirely new industries that might be spawned through AI?

"When John von Neumann generated the idea for a computer, people never thought of software engineering as an industry," she said. "We need an adequate imagination."

SMART MACHINE VS SMART HUMAN

Commenting on the recent debate on whether AI will one day replace human intelligence, Li said the threat is overblown.

She cited a famous saying in the 1970s to clarify her view: The definition of today's AI is a computer that can make a perfect chess move while the room is on fire.

This means AI can accomplish plenty, such as memorizing 3,000 car models, but it doesn't understand the environment and context of every scenario, Li said.

"As a scientist, I want to keep the humbleness when I think about AI as a science as well as a technology," Li said. "So it's important to recognize AI as a very very young field. It still has a lot of open questions and challenges."

However, AI can play an important role in many areas with more human-machine cooperation, Li noted.

In cases such as the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, robots would have been more ideal to replace human beings in dangerous disaster relief work, she said.

Smart machines can also assist human beings in repetitive labor, Li said. For example, doctors can only diagnose a limited number of medical images, but machines can process a lot more at a likely lower cost and within a shorter time. This would allow doctors to conduct more valuable research and communicate more with patients, work that can't be replaced by AI.

"Machines don't have independent value," Li said. "The value of machines is the value of human beings."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/20/c_136839581.htm
 
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