China's Race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

[TaiShang]

AI-powered waste management underway in China


(People's Daily Online) 13:38, February 26, 2019

Residents use a waste sorting bin of Xiaohuanggou in a community in Shenzhen. (Photo courtesy of Xiaohuanggou)

Waste management powered by artificial intelligence (AI) is getting off the ground in China as the country works to build itself into a greener place with more Chinese residents realizing the importance of garbage classification and recycling.

Xiaohuanggou ( which means little yellow dog in English), a company principally engaged in environmental protection, has rolled out more than 10,000 AI-powered waste sorting bins in 33 Chinese cities, gaining over 2.6 million users on its app in less than a year under the support of government policy.

The State Council recently issued a plan to build zero-waste cities which promote the “Internet Plus recycling model” to integrate new technologies with garbage sorting.

The AI-powered garbage sorting bin could automatically identify waste using cameras or the average density and size of items. It also pays users when they recycle metals, plastic and paper boxes.

A user surnamed Li, who lives in Beijing, received an environmental protection fund of 0.25 yuan for simply scanning the QR code and putting her broken pan into a smart waste sorting bin. The money is credited to her Xiaohuanggou account and can be cashed once it exceeds 10 yuan.

A worker of Xiaohuanggou operates a machine to compress and pack cardboard recycled. (Photo/Zhang Chuxin)

Besides image identification and real-time payment, the smart waste sorting bins also provide services such as big data, cloud computing, and accurate location, which enable users to trace their waste.

The monitoring system will notify garbage collectors once 80 percent of bin space is used and deliver the waste to the sorting center, where the garbage will be further processed and transferred to factories as renewable resources.

Xiaohuanggou plans to establish an online shopping mall and personal credit rating system as well as build industrial parks and chains for garbage classification.

Alipay, the Chinese mobile payment giant, has also gone full speed in this race. It has introduced platforms for garbage sorting into over 30,000 communities in 14 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Statistics show that China produces about 10 billion tons of solid waste every year. It requires the participation of every Chinese citizen to win the battle against pollution.

Li Guoqing, director of the urban and environmental studies department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that society needs to raise public awareness for environmental protection instead of just focusing on personal income from recycling.

“We will continue recycling through the ‘Internet Plus’ model and draw more people to join us to contribute to China’s waste management,” said Tang Jun, founder of Xiaohuanggou.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0226/c98649-9549956.html

 

[TaiShang]

Zhejiang to cultivate 100 model enterprises on AI applications

Source:Xinhua Published: 2019/2/26


East China's Zhejiang Province will cultivate more than 100 model enterprises to boost artificial intelligence (AI) industry applications in the next three years.

The model companies refer to those which do well in incorporating AI with traditional manufacturing, according to an action plan for new-generation AI development jointly released by the provincial department of economics and information and department of science and technology.

The firms are subject to specific thresholds including increasing labor productivity and shortening the design cycles by over 20 percent each, said Li Yongwei, director of AI office under the provincial department of economics and information.

"Driven by model enterprises, AI's role can be amplified in industrial clusters across the province," said Li.

The plan also proposed the launch of 500 pilot smart manufacturing projects, setting up 100 intelligent plants and increasing the number of industrial robots in service to 150,000 units by 2022.

Zhejiang now has a complete AI industrial chain, from core technology and industry and smart terminal manufacturing to intelligent application. It is also home to a large number of high-tech firms in fields like machine learning, cloud computing and services, intelligent security and sensors.

To adapt to AI development and market demand, Zhejiang is exploring a model of industrial development pushed by different entities. Zhejiang Lab, jointly built by the provincial government, Zhejiang University and Alibaba Group, has launched open platforms to make breakthroughs in the AI industry.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1140187.shtml

Reserved for further reference.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/hori...emiconductor-giants-and-top-auto-oems.604417/

Thank you @cirr

 

[TaiShang]

Real benefits from artificial intelligence start to show up in sales sector

Source:Global Times Published: 2019/2/28

Photo: VCG



You may think you are talking to a salesperson - but actually, it's a robot that can mimic human vocal tones, emotions and even dialects.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has improved so much that it's being used by some Chinese companies to make sales calls using robots.

If you get such a call, you may hear what sounds like a woman, asking if you need a loan. If you say yes, she will likely provide the information you want. But even if you get angry and yell at her, she'll stay calm and end the call politely. You probably wouldn't even realize that "she" was a robot.

"There are two AI-related technologies involved in this process - natural language understanding and voice recognition," Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based industry analyst, said.

The former allows a robot to analyze your question and search its database for answers that match the key words in the question. The latter allows the robot to understand you, even if you speak with an accent, he said.

The robot can use dialects because its conversational vocabulary has been recorded from the speech of actual people. However, there are limitations - a robot might comprehend frequently used dialects such as that used in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, but it might not understand more obscure ones, Liu added.

Service industries are keen to use robots in this manner. The 12321 Internet Obscene and Trash Information Reporting Center established by the Internet Society of China received 216,000 complaints on annoying sales calls from October to December. Loans, securities and real estate promotions were among the top complaints.

AI-powered sales calls are cost-efficient. The robots can make 1,000 to 1,500 phone calls per day, doing the work of a 40-person sales team at the cost of one person, according to an article published on qq.com.

"You need to buy a cellphone SIM card and mail it to us. The card will be put into our equipment, and all the calls will be made using this number," a customer service person at a technology company in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, on e-commerce platform taobao.com told Global Times.

The company charges 800 yuan ($120) a month for a package of services, including forming a database, building a vocabulary, drawing up dialogues and other technical support.

"The AI will select customers who are interested and refer them to you," the person explained.

Technology is neutral. It's not only used in making perhaps-unwanted sales calls, it's also prevalent among online food ordering and other customer services in China, said Liu.

"The technology is already mature in China on that front."

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1140538.shtml

 

[TaiShang]

AI company makes breakthrough Re ID for public security

Source:Global Times Published: 2019/3/3

A visitor at the booth of CloudWalk at CES ASIA in Shanghai in June 2018 File photo: VCG


An artificial intelligence (AI) start-up in China has made major breakthroughs in the development of person Re-identification (Re ID) technology, which enables users to search, recognize and track a person's location via clothing, hairstyles and posture as captured by different cameras without the need for facial images.

Such technology is an extension and supplement of AI facial recognition technology.

The AI start-up, CloudWalk, has so far applied it in different industries including security and protection, transportation and finance.

Specifically in the public security system, the Re ID technology could help police officers integrate data in facial recognition and body images so as to "strengthen the tracking ability and deepen the application capacity of public security videos," said a statement CloudWalk sent to the Global Times over the weekend.

CloudWalk has cooperated widely with China's public security departments in different regions to provide facial recognition technology support to supervise and capture criminal suspects.

The company has also "played a vital role in the security and protection work" in Northwest China's Xinjiang Region.

The Re ID technology it developed has broken three world records including mean average precision and rank-1 accuracy, CloudWalk said. Meanwhile, the speed of the core algorithm of the Re ID technology has improved about 10 times compared with last year.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1140770.shtml

@qwerrty , @Dungeness

 

[TaiShang]

China's Top Music University Recruits AI PhD Students

By Liu Caiyu (Global Times) 10:33, March 06, 2019

The So-na performer Liu Wenwen and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra played the Concerto “Hundred Birds and Phoenix” at 2019 Tandun New Year’s Concert (Photo: Fang Yingxin, People’s Daily）


China's top music university is recruiting PhD students majoring in music and artificial intelligence (AI), as the country is moving quickly to embrace AI technology.

The Beijing-based Central Conservatory of Music started to recruit students with the combined ability in music and AI on March 1st for a three-year PhD program to nurture them in both disciplines, according to its official website.

The project is open to students who major in computer, AI and electronic information, and the university will also test their musical capabilities.

The university said it believes that “science and technology is one of the main driving forces of musical development, and artificial intelligence will be another important opportunity for musical development in the future.”

AI studies could help musicians create music by capturing the music patterns of popular music or customizing music by calculating various parameters, including music genre, rhythm, instrument and mood, according to AI specialists reached by Global Times.

Music relies heavily on science and technology. It cannot be seen but every musical instrument and song is produced from accurate math calculations, Zhang Zhentao, a musician and professor at the Music Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Arts, told the Global Times.

The university has recommended five books for students on algorithms, AI theory, machine learning and basic music theory.

Sun Maosong, a professor at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Tsinghua University and Wu Xihong, a professor at the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University, have been invited as instructors of the PhD project. However, some is not optimistic about the job market for the music students specializing in AI technology. It seems that the commercial application market of AI music is unprofitable and still in the initial stages.

The recruitment will end on March 15.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0306/c90000-9553109.html

 

[JSCh]

AI surpasses humans in comprehension test
By Tan Yingzi in Chongqing | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2019-03-12 16:21

[Photo/IC]​

A computer program developed in China has outscored humans in a reading test – the first time a computer program has done so.

It represents a major artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough, its developers have said.

The program on March 8 was awarded first place in RACE (Large-scale Reading Comprehension Dataset from Examination), a reading comprehension dataset with more than 28,000 passages and nearly 100,000 questions.

Jointly developed by Chinese tech company CloudWalk Technologhy and Shanghai Jiaotong University, the program is a dual co-matching network (DCMN),

The network has managed to increase machines' accuracy to 69.8 percent in high school reading tests, beating humans' score of 69.4 percent.

This means that machines can surpass humans in data collection while reading, said CloudWalk in a Monday statement, also however noting that this does not represent a decisive victory for machine over man.

"This technology can be applied widely in the service industry and help humans deal with paperwork," said Zhou Xiang, deputy director of the CloudWalk Research Institute.

The technology can for example help clients read through files, search for information, and review words on social networking platforms and search engines, he said.

At the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin on Sept 19 last year, CloudWalk Technology, a startup in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area, was listed among China's top 50 AI companies.

After its establishment in 2015, CloudWalk took just three years to reach unicorn status.

Many world-famous research institutes participate in RACE, including OpenAI, Nanyang Technological University, IBM and Carnegie Mellon University.

 

[TaiShang]

Tech minister: AI development pace "too aggressive"

Updated 17:18, 11-Mar-2019
Xia Cheng

China is investing billions of yuan in Artificial Intelligence (AI). “China's AI development is ahead of moral and legal progression in this country and in the world,” the country's tech minister said Monday, adding that the pace of development might be too aggressive.

Officials from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology met with the press Monday to explain what their policies mean for a variety of sectors. The officials touched on a number of issues that could redirect China's innovation drive in AI and basic sciences.

Wang Zhigang, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology, described new technology as “a double-edged sword that could bring both benefit and risks,” and asked tech professionals to “have strong senses of responsibility and morality.”

“Technology is a double-edged sword that could bring both benefit and risks. That's why when turning new technologies into material applications, there will be uncertain consequences,” Wang said.

VCG Photo

China is the world's 17th most inventive country, according to the Global Innovation Index in 2018. China wants to be in the top 15 on that list by 2020. But just that two-place advancement will require an across-the-board progression in China's research ethics, academic practices, and better development for young scientists.

The minister mentioned that China's investment into basic science research lags far behind other economies, such as the United States.

“The five percent investment into basic science research is mainly offered by the central government budget. Local governments and the private sector are rarely involved. That's unlike the U.S. where the federal and local governments and corporations are all investing in basic sciences,” he addressed.

Meanwhile, Wang called for more talents to “focus on basic sciences, not tech applications and product design.”

“It's good news that there are hi-tech companies investing in talent. Those people focus on basic sciences, not tech applications and product design,” the minister stressed.

 

[TaiShang]

Alibaba Nabs Ex-Facebook AI Scientist to Develop Big Data Platforms

LIAO SHUMIN
DATE : MAR 19 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

Alibaba Nabs Ex-Facebook AI Scientist to Develop Big Data Platforms

(Yicai Global) March 19 -- Jia Yangqing, a former artificial intelligence expert for Facebook, has joined Alibaba Group Holding as vice president of engineering.

Jia will lead research and development on Big Data computing platforms, the Hangzhou-based tech giant's AI lab Alibaba Damo Academy said on Quora-like question-and-answer platform Zhihu.

The Tsinghua University graduate joined Facebook three years ago as a director involved in developing the California-based firm's solutions for computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition and augmented reality. Before that, he was a research scientist at Google's deep learning team Google Brain.

Founded in October 2017, Damo Acadamy was set up to help Alibaba achieve its goal of becoming the world's fifth-largest economy over the next two decades, according to its website. It has seven global locations including in Hangzhou and Silicon Valley.

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/al...i-scientist-jia-to-develop-big-data-platforms

Nice brain-regain @cirr , @GS Zhou , @Beidou2020 , @Cybernetics

Below is also a related news.

***

AI race between China, US shifts to talent in battle for dominance

By Wang Cong Source:Global Times Published: 2019/3/19

Chinese firms becoming more attractive than US rivals, but still lag: insiders

Photo: VCG


News that a top Chinese scientist specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) has left US technology giant Facebook Inc to join Alibaba Group grabbed much attention in China's technology circles, with some suggesting that the competition between China and the US for AI talent might be escalating as both countries rush for dominance in the area.

Though the US still leads in many areas related to AI from innovation to talent, China has been steadily closing the gap in recent years and is stepping up its efforts in both research and development and talent acquisition, insiders said on Tuesday.

Jia Yangqing, a research scientist and director of Facebook's AI Infrastructure, has officially joined Alibaba's Damo Academy, the AI research arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba said on Tuesday, confirming earlier media reports.

Jia will serve as the vice president of engineering at Alibaba and lead research and development into big data computing platforms, according to Damo.

Born in Shaoxing, East China's Zhejiang Province and a graduate of Tsinghua University, Jia has become a leading scientist in the AI field. Before joining Facebook in 2016, he developed a machine-learning framework known as Caffe, which provides advanced deep learning algorithms and reference models for researchers.

"This is a big move by Alibaba to ramp up its endeavors in the AI field," Xiang Yang, an industry analyst at Beijing-based CCID Consulting, told the Global Times on Tuesday. He noted that Alibaba has been lagging behind its main domestic rivals - Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings - in AI research and development.

"Alibaba has been spending big money to recruit top talent to catch up," Xiang said.

But behind Alibaba's move is a broader trend in China, where both the government and private companies are trying their best to build a talent pool, as the country aims to achieve global power in AI by 2025.

"This is an area where a pool of world-class talent is absolutely necessary to get ahead," a technology sector insider told the Global Times. "But so far, most researchers, including those from China, tend to choose to work in the US."

Though Chinese universities have produced more than 12,500 AI graduates, only 31 percent of them have stayed in China, while 62 percent went to the US, according to a report released by California-based AI firm Diffbot in December.

The US has the largest AI talent pool globally with nearly 221,600 workers, while China only ranked fifth, with about 18,450 workers, the report said.

"US companies are still leading in research and development in many areas and it has a great environment for innovation, so understandably, many experts choose to go to the US," said the insider, who requested anonymity.

However, that may be changing as China has been investing heavily in AI, with many government policy guidelines and private-sector developments. Between 2013 and March 2018, investment in AI in China accounted for 60 percent of the world's total, according to a report from Tsinghua University in July 2018.

As a result, China has already surpassed the US in the total number of AI publications since 2006 and is poised to overtake the US in the most-cited 50 percent of papers this year, according to analysis from the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence released earlier this month.

 

[Beidou2020]

Alibaba Nabs Ex-Facebook AI Scientist to Develop Big Data Platforms

LIAO SHUMIN
DATE : MAR 19 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

Alibaba Nabs Ex-Facebook AI Scientist to Develop Big Data Platforms

(Yicai Global) March 19 -- Jia Yangqing, a former artificial intelligence expert for Facebook, has joined Alibaba Group Holding as vice president of engineering.

Jia will lead research and development on Big Data computing platforms, the Hangzhou-based tech giant's AI lab Alibaba Damo Academy said on Quora-like question-and-answer platform Zhihu.

The Tsinghua University graduate joined Facebook three years ago as a director involved in developing the California-based firm's solutions for computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition and augmented reality. Before that, he was a research scientist at Google's deep learning team Google Brain.

Founded in October 2017, Damo Acadamy was set up to help Alibaba achieve its goal of becoming the world's fifth-largest economy over the next two decades, according to its website. It has seven global locations including in Hangzhou and Silicon Valley.

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/al...i-scientist-jia-to-develop-big-data-platforms

Nice brain-regain @cirr , @GS Zhou , @Beidou2020 , @Cybernetics

Below is also a related news.

***

AI race between China, US shifts to talent in battle for dominance

By Wang Cong Source:Global Times Published: 2019/3/19

Chinese firms becoming more attractive than US rivals, but still lag: insiders

Photo: VCG


News that a top Chinese scientist specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) has left US technology giant Facebook Inc to join Alibaba Group grabbed much attention in China's technology circles, with some suggesting that the competition between China and the US for AI talent might be escalating as both countries rush for dominance in the area.

Though the US still leads in many areas related to AI from innovation to talent, China has been steadily closing the gap in recent years and is stepping up its efforts in both research and development and talent acquisition, insiders said on Tuesday.

Jia Yangqing, a research scientist and director of Facebook's AI Infrastructure, has officially joined Alibaba's Damo Academy, the AI research arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba said on Tuesday, confirming earlier media reports.

Jia will serve as the vice president of engineering at Alibaba and lead research and development into big data computing platforms, according to Damo.

Born in Shaoxing, East China's Zhejiang Province and a graduate of Tsinghua University, Jia has become a leading scientist in the AI field. Before joining Facebook in 2016, he developed a machine-learning framework known as Caffe, which provides advanced deep learning algorithms and reference models for researchers.

"This is a big move by Alibaba to ramp up its endeavors in the AI field," Xiang Yang, an industry analyst at Beijing-based CCID Consulting, told the Global Times on Tuesday. He noted that Alibaba has been lagging behind its main domestic rivals - Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings - in AI research and development.

"Alibaba has been spending big money to recruit top talent to catch up," Xiang said.

But behind Alibaba's move is a broader trend in China, where both the government and private companies are trying their best to build a talent pool, as the country aims to achieve global power in AI by 2025.

"This is an area where a pool of world-class talent is absolutely necessary to get ahead," a technology sector insider told the Global Times. "But so far, most researchers, including those from China, tend to choose to work in the US."

Though Chinese universities have produced more than 12,500 AI graduates, only 31 percent of them have stayed in China, while 62 percent went to the US, according to a report released by California-based AI firm Diffbot in December.

The US has the largest AI talent pool globally with nearly 221,600 workers, while China only ranked fifth, with about 18,450 workers, the report said.

"US companies are still leading in research and development in many areas and it has a great environment for innovation, so understandably, many experts choose to go to the US," said the insider, who requested anonymity.

However, that may be changing as China has been investing heavily in AI, with many government policy guidelines and private-sector developments. Between 2013 and March 2018, investment in AI in China accounted for 60 percent of the world's total, according to a report from Tsinghua University in July 2018.

As a result, China has already surpassed the US in the total number of AI publications since 2006 and is poised to overtake the US in the most-cited 50 percent of papers this year, according to analysis from the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence released earlier this month.

221,600 vs 18,450 is a big difference. Talent recruitment is very important. Most innovation done in the US are done with foreign talent.

 

[TaiShang]

Alibaba Invests in Protection of China's Regional Dialects Through AI

ZHANG YUSHUO
DATE : MAR 21 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

Alibaba Invests in Protection of China's Regional Dialects Through AI

(Yicai Global) March 21 -- Alibaba Group Holding's AI Labs has set up a special team tasked with protecting China's regional dialects with an investment of CNY100 million (USD15 million).

The Hangzhou-based tech giant will work to optimize the understanding of the western Sichuan dialect initially before expanding the program to other local languages in the country, reports online news outlet Sina Tech.

AI Labs will build a national network based on samples of voice interactions with mobile applications and smart speakers as a basis and establish key performance indicators for language protection to protect those that are endangered.

The team will also work closely with policymakers, experts, scholars and universities to explore the protective development of dialects.

Alibaba AI Labs General Manager Chen Lijuan will lead the team. The team aims to boost the functions of the firm's Tmall Genie smart speaker product through its work, Chen said.

 

[TaiShang]

China moves firmly ahead with incentives to boost AI

Source:Global Times Published: 2019/2/17

More preferential policies anticipated

A poster advertising smart face recognition technology in Shanghai in April 2018 Photo: VCG

From the central government to local authorities, China is firmly moving ahead to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) sector, as part of a major effort to push forward new technologies and upgrade the traditional manufacturing sector.

Experts said that China's efforts to strengthen its advanced technology will not be interrupted by external uncertainties, and more incentive policies will be rolled out this year to promote new technology development.

Chengdu, capital of Southeast China's Sichuan Province, adopted 12 measures to boost AI development, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency over the weekend.

The local government vows to promote R&D involving key AI technologies and will earmark as much as 10 million yuan ($1.48 million) in subsidies to enterprises and universities engaged in the sector, the report said.

"Chengdu's move is not a surprise, and more cities are set to engage in this effort soon, with the central government's support and a vast application scenario within the country, " Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Separately, Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province announced the establishment of research bases for the standardization of two AI technologies in January. Also, the Shanghai municipal government signed a strategic cooperation agreement with domestic technology giant Baidu Inc in November last year to develop the AI industry in the city.

Also in November last year, Beijing issued an action plan to develop AI and established an AI research institute to promote the industry.

China is driving technological innovation in emerging areas - not only in AI, but also in next-generation telecommunication technologies, big data, new-energy vehicles and e-commerce, experts said.

"The emergence of new technologies is a critical opportunity that China must seize and will be the key for China in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. In terms of AI and 5G, China is already one of the leading players in the world," Cong noted.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Chinese institutions make up 17 of the world's top 20 academic players in AI patenting and 10 of the top 20 in AI-related scientific publications.

Cong noted that breakthroughs in these new technologies are reshaping the traditional manufacturing sector.

"The country also has to support the manufacturing industry to adapt to and apply AI and 5G into its existing business models in a fast and efficient way,�?said Cong. This trend is inevitable, Cong said.

"To continue the upgrading of the country's manufacturing sector, while at the same time strengthening technological innovation, will be the two tasks for China in 2019 and for a long time thereafter," Cong said.

 

[TaiShang]

Chinese AI company announces breakthrough in 3D human reconstruction technology

(People's Daily Overseas New Media) 11:06, March 22, 2019

Photo via The Paper

A Chinese AI company affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Tuesday announced a new breakthrough in 3D human reconstruction technology, bringing down surface error by 30%, which is expected to make the advanced technology available on smartphones.

The company, Guangzhou-based Cloudwalk, announced that their breakthrough has set a new world record on 3D human reconstruction technology to build a single-frame image. On the key indexes of Human3.6M, Surreal, and UP-3D, the company decreased the surface error – a main indicator to measure the algorithm – at the millimeter level.

On Human3.6M, for example, the surface error of human joints has dropped from 59.9mm to 46.7mm.

In addition, execution speed has also been cut from 100 milliseconds to just 5 milliseconds, the company added.

Wu Fan, a scientist with the company, said they are using a brand new 3D information representation model that can predict human body postures by analyzing the three primary color images and can depict the human body with over 60,000 points, China Science Daily reported.

The breakthrough has reduced the requirement for input images. The technology can utilize ordinary optical cameras as sensing devices, which means applications that used to face restrictions in implementation can be gradually implemented in full and related smart image applications will be promoted, according to the company.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0322/c90000-9559423.html

 

[TaiShang]

AI, big data to bring more jobs in China

Xinhua, March 23, 2019

Rapid development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing in China will help create more job opportunities, according to a report released Friday.

The report by recruitment agency Michael Page China said China's technological boom has led to increasing demand for local specialists, especially those in middle and senior management.

The report also showed that an increasing number of firms in China are attaching greater importance to the candidate's data analysis capacity.

Mark Tibbatts, managing director of Michael Page Greater China, said because many firms are basing their decision making on data, they have shown a growing demand for talent in data analysis and strategic communication.

The number of jobs in digital marketing has increased by 30 percent in the past 12 months, and employees in the sector can expect a salary increase of up to 30 percent when changing jobs, according to the report.

Tibbatts said that given the intense competition over local talent, firms in China need to emphasize their corporate culture and provide clear career paths to attract the cream of the crop.

Another recent survey by Michael Page China showed that 69 percent of job seekers consider personal development a key factor in job hunting, and 70 percent regard the opportunity to learn new skills and experience as the primary motivation for switching jobs.

 

[TaiShang]

China's AI ecosystem is changing real economy, says Li Kaifu

China Daily, April 4, 2019

Artificial intelligence will bring about changes as fundamental as those enabled by electrification, argues Li Kaifu, Chinese artificial intelligence specialist and founder of the venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures. He says that China is leading in real-world applications of AI to businesses, factories and cities, and is catching up with the United States in basic research.

Li's technological optimism contrasts with a widespread pessimism about technology prevalent among thinkers from Silicon Valley.

For example, famed venture capitalist Peter Theil uses the slogan "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters" as the subtitle of his investment fund. In many interviews, he has explained that we've seen "innovation in the world of bits, but not in the world of atoms".

In contrast, Li said in an interview with China Daily that we are already seeing people's lives improved by, for example, shopping websites that help you find what you are looking for. "For people who are feeling that this is not science fiction, this is just Taobao showing me an ad or a bank giving me a loan. Just wait. In the next five or 10 years, we'll see robotics and in the next 10-20 years autonomous vehicles - and they will be magical," he said.

"The atom part will take longer, but that will happen too. The hardest part today appears to be the atom side - robotics, autonomous vehicles, flying cars and things like that. Because the big breakthroughs have been just pure software."

Ironically, Theil, the co-founder of PayPal and a lead investor in Facebook and big data mining company Palantir, has said that we live in a financial age, rather than a scientific and technological age. "It's not clear it's enough to bring our civilization to the next level."

Most tellingly, Theil points out that the oligopolistic US tech giants - Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft - are each sitting on billions of dollars of cash, but they can't think of any technological opportunities where they can invest that money.

On the other hand, China's ferociously competitive tech sector is pushing real-world uses of AI.

Li said: "When you measure implementation and value creation, China is ahead. Roughly speaking, China's AI engineers are more massive, more hardworking and tenacious, and are moving forward and creating momentum."

He added that the Chinese tech sector is more competitive and its business model innovation is "definitely way ahead" of Silicon Valley. "We can count unicorns, we can count market cap, we can count revenue. Also, we can count who has more accurate speech recognition or face recognition or machine translation at the industrial level."

However, recent academic reports conclude that China still does lag behind the US in terms of fundamental scientific research in the field.

Li cited a March report, which he calls "most authoritative", by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. The report shows that total Chinese academic publications on AI have surpassed the US, but high-quality publications have not yet caught up.

The Allen Institute "basically measures what percentage of the top 50 percent of AI papers originate from China compared to the US. The study paper counts citations in other research papers, which is commonly accepted as a metric of quality. In terms of the top 50 percent of papers, China has now caught up with the US. But, in terms of the top 10 percent, China is further behind, but will catch up within the next three to four years. If you measure the top 1 percent, China will need about five years to catch up." Li adds that he believes that China is about 10 years behind if you look at the key papers that are in the one-tenth of 1 percent most cited. No other country or region is close to China or the US in terms of AI applications or research.

A July 2018 report by Tsinghua University's China Institute for Science and Technology Policy concluded that China's economy has fundamentally moved from the process of catching up to an innovation-based economy: "Unlike in the past industrial revolutions where China was left behind and struggled to catch up, China has got a head start for the fourth industrial revolution. In AI, in fact, China has secured a leading position in the top echelon in both technology development and market applications and is in a race of 'two giants' with the US."

 

[TaiShang]

AI major now available at universities

By Zou Shuo | China Daily | Updated: 2019-04-15

An artificial intelligence-powered robot welcomes a customer in the Xiangyang branch of Ping An Bank in Xiangyang, Hubei province. [Photo by Yang Dong/For China Daily]

Universities in China will welcome the first group of undergraduate students majoring in artificial intelligence in September.

According to a list issued by the Ministry of Education, 35 universities received approval to establish the four-year undergraduate AI-related majors amid the country's drive to build a strong AI talent pool.

They include many prestigious universities such as Beijing Jiaotong University, Beihang University, Nanjing University and Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Lin Youfang, vice-dean of the School of Computer and Information Technology at Beijing Jiaotong University, said the school plans to enroll about 30 undergraduate students majoring in AI in September.

There might be more students majoring in AI who transfer from other majors through a selection process if the new major proves to be successful, he said.

The school established an AI research institute in December 2017 for graduate students. Many instructors at the school are working on AI-related research so there will be no problem finding capable teachers for the new students, Lin said.

China's booming AI industry has resulted in a growing demand for talent. It is common for students in AI-related fields to have already committed to companies before they even graduate and enter the job market, he said.

Master's graduates majoring in AI can easily find jobs with salaries over 300,000 yuan ($44,700) per year, and salaries for doctoral graduates are even higher, he said.

Chinese universities are catching up with their counterparts in the United States in terms of basic research in AI and the number of published papers, yet they still lag behind in transforming research into application, he added.

Zheng Nanning, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and head of the innovation research academy of intelligent robotics at Xi'an Jiaotong University, said the university began considering an undergraduate AI major in 2016, and it has since established an experimental undergraduate AI class in 2018 with 55 students taught by the country's leading AI experts.

The university established the academy in October 2017 and an AI school in January. The academy has 26 master's candidates and eight doctoral candidates, Zheng said.

"Universities should aim for major breakthroughs in basic research and core technology. We are still striving to achieve revolutionary and disruptive changes in AI theories, methods, tools and systems," he added.

The ministry issued an action plan in 2018 to promote AI education in universities. According to the plan, universities in China will improve AI discipline and make breakthroughs in basic theories and key technology research by 2020.

Chinese universities will become core forces for building major global AI innovation centers by 2030.

The plan calls for integration of AI with mathematics, statistics, physics, biology, psychology and sociology, among other disciplines. It promotes the "AI + X" interdisciplinary approach in universities and aims to set up 100 majors that combine AI and other subjects by 2020.

Many Chinese universities have set their sights on improving AI education and nurturing more AI talent and have established new AI departments and research institutes.

Tsinghua University established an AI institute in 2018 as part of its efforts to advance AI research and education.

Aiming to become a globally influential AI research institution, the institute focuses on the basic theory of AI and actively promotes cross-disciplinary AI research as well as the integration of academia and industry.