India is losing the AI battle to China, one app at a time

[beijingwalker]

India is losing the AI battle to China, one app at a time
TNN | Jan 27, 2019, 02:00
A year ago, there were only 18 Chinese mobile apps among the top 100 apps on Google Playstore in India, and only two of them among the top ten. The number, as my FactorDaily colleague Shadma Shaikh wrote earlier this month, has now doubled.

TikTok, a short video-hosting social platform, already counts India as its biggest market with 39% of its 500 million global users based here. And it’s not the only app being touted as a potential YouTube killer in India. LIKE and Kwai, apart from other live-streaming apps such as LiveMe and BigoLive,

Quietly and steadily, China’s app factory has been conquering India, far away from the mainstream noise about e-commerce and telecom. And very soon, these Chinese apps will have more data and insights about the next billion Indian internet users than any other platform, including Facebook and Google.

Why does that matter? China wants to dominate the AI world and fast-pace its transition from being a factory of the world to becoming a high-value destination for smart machines that mimic the human brain. Acquiring more data and throwing it all at the machines so they learn faster and deeper, is the holy grail for AI dominance.

Consumer apps such as TikTok and BigoLive that have massive engagement with their users and capture hundreds of millions of data sets everyday feed into China’s big data arsenal. And while India will retain its status as the world’s battlefield for acquiring the next billion users, it will be about the American and Chinese internet companies looking to conquer the final frontier. Already, two of India’s biggest e-commerce companies — Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart — are US enterprises.

Let’s look at how China’s app factories carefully put together their own playbook. It is all about pushing the boundaries, focusing obsessively on the vernacular market and doing whatever it takes to go viral (including soft ****). Kwai, for instance, is a breeding ground for child pornography. The app encourages users, especially underage girls to perform vulgar gestures and lip sync to suggestive songs, among other acts.

Chinese platforms are beginning to realise the dangers of pushing soft **** content for achieving virality. LiveMe, for instance, had to delete 600,000 accounts of children under 13 after Fox11 news channel in Los Angeles talked of the dangers of paedophiles exploiting children.

To be sure, these apps are well-designed products in terms of technology sophistication and user interfaces.

ByteDance, for instance, has designed and launched Helo, a regional entertainment content platform specifically for India. If you haven’t heard of Helo yet, it’s only because the app only targets small-town, first-time, vernacular users. Helo is not even available in English. It is available in 14 regional languages including Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bhojpuri.

The strategy is already paying off. In fact, for some of these Chinese apps, India is the only market of focus. SHAREit, a social content platform, believes it will have to shut down if there’s no India market for the app. They have watched the India market closely for years and learned from the failures too. WeChat, which failed to make any dent, is a case study for any new Chinese app entrant to learn what not to do.

And then, there’s India’s homegrown Sharechat, which was launched in 2015 and has over 50 million downloads. Sharechat demonstrated how savvy and first-time internet users in India’s tier 2 and tier 3 towns can be tapped with vernacular content. Chinese apps such as ByteDance’s Helo have been really quick to learn from Sharechat’s playbook.

For its part, the US is already planning to clamp down on China’s investments in Silicon Valley with the Congress passing the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (Firrma) last August.

Several startup founders and investors have been talking in hushed tones about the need for India to look at similar tactics. The stakes are high. Already, Chinese companies have invested more than $2 billion in Indian startups in 2017 alone.

Meanwhile, India’s classic love-hate affair with China is already catching up with the country’s fledgling startup ecosystem. Startup founders and investors in India are beginning to feel increased government scrutiny, often caught in the middle of “Doklam-like” confrontations.

A board member at one of the top Indian startups backed by a Chinese fund decided to quit, sensing upcoming “complexities”. "This year is going to be about economic nationalism," he told me. “And I would rather not be seen as being on the other side.”

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...na-one-app-at-a-time/articleshow/67704593.cms

 

[beijingwalker]

Don't know why India never says they lost any battles to US, but only China.

 

[Dungeness]

I don't know what Indian's highly glorified "IT Superpower" has done for its own people.

 

[enquencher]

Half of the apps come bundled with the chinise mobile handsets.chinise handsets have major share in indian market.so dont get ur red chaddis in twist.

 

[beijingwalker]

I don't know what Indian's highly glorified "IT Superpower" has done for its own people.

Barely 5 years ago, all Indians here bragged that India was way ahead of China in IT industry, so they fall silence collevtively.

 

[Figaro]

I don't know what Indian's highly glorified "IT Superpower" has done for its own people.

IT Superpower does not equal to AI Superpower. India lacks the education and research necessary for development of AI.

 

[Chanakyaa]

Don't know why India never says they lost any battles to US, but only China.

I guess, coz Nukes from USA are NOT Pointed towards India.

 

[beijingwalker]

IT Superpower does not equal to AI Superpower

You don't see them claiming they are way ahead of China in IT industry either now, but a couple of years ago they claimed that everyday in this forum.

 

[Chanakyaa]

Barely 5 years ago, all Indians here bragged that India was way ahead of China in IT industry, so they fall silence collevtively.

Indian Manufacturing Sucks. R&D is far far below China. India Lags behind China and that a Real Fact.
But.

But We Indians STRONGLY believe that we need to take DIFFERENT path. For Example, China is fucisng aon all big things in Space and NO doubt they even have far far better Space technology.

India, is NOT focused over Space Labs or Competing US ( like China ), we are focusing on making ISRO the next SPACEX rather NASA.

In short, India will NEVER Try to OVERCOME China/US, we have our own unique set of problems which CAN and Will have Unique Solutions.

 

[Dungeness]

IT Superpower does not equal to AI Superpower

just run into a video presentation by a Chinese AI voice recognition scientist, he claimed China is THE current front run in AI VOICE recognition tech, no only in Chinese, but also in English and HINDI!

 

[beijingwalker]

I guess, coz Nukes from USA are NOT Pointed towards India.

You never know, and how do you know China points nuclear weapons at India, we have no first use policy.

 

[Figaro]

You don't see them claiming they are way ahead of China in IT industry either now, but a couple of years ago they claimed that everyday in this forum.

But AI is not synonymous with IT. AI is artificial intelligence while IT is information technology. The former deals with much more complex mathematics applications while the latter consists mainly of data manipulation. For AI, think of autonomous vehicles. For IT, think of large data processing. While I've also heard Indians claiming that they lead the world in IT, I've never heard them say with regard to AI.

You never know, and how do you know China points nuclear weapons at India, we have no first use policy.

Pointing nuclear weapons towards India is simply a matter of changing the targeting coordinates ...

 

[Chanakyaa]

Pointing nuclear weapons towards India is simply a matter of changing the targeting coordinates ...

Yes, Practically, That doesnt mean US will Attack Israel or UK .. Period. While China has/can attack(ed) India.

But, talking about attack/war, I dont think China / India even think about war. Skirmishes.. Yes. War.. BIG NO. We both have a LOT to loose very very little to gain.

 

[Genesis]

Indian Manufacturing Sucks. R&D is far far below China. India Lags behind China and that a Real Fact.
But.

But We Indians STRONGLY believe that we need to take DIFFERENT path. For Example, China is fucisng aon all big things in Space and NO doubt they even have far far better Space technology.

India, is NOT focused over Space Labs or Competing US ( like China ), we are focusing on making ISRO the next SPACEX rather NASA.

In short, India will NEVER Try to OVERCOME China/US, we have our own unique set of problems which CAN and Will have Unique Solutions.

There is no way that is the ISRO's goal. NASA and SpaceX serve different purposes. This is like saying because I have a sedan we don't need a truck. Not used for the same thing.

If ISRO becomes spaceX then India is stuck in the space race because SpaceX is there to make money not to advance science.

The fact ISRO is planning to conduct manned missions, moon and mars missions means that this is still their bread and butter.

You can say India doesn't have the funding or experience to do the wide range of missions that other agencies are doing yet, but don't shift the goal post to outside the field, because when you score there it still doesn't count.

 

[Han Patriot]

I guess, coz Nukes from USA are NOT Pointed towards India.

Nukes from Pakistan and China are tho.

You don't see them claiming they are way ahead of China in IT industry either now, but a couple of years ago they claimed that everyday in this forum.

You need to understand the difference between technology and IT coolie outsourcing. Alot of Indian exports include services like tech support call centers. Alot of retrrenchmnr recently and there is a new call center demand for scams originating from India. It's the scam call capital of the world now.