Cars that drive themselves, facial recognition,
detecting cancer potentially better than a doctor,
these are just some of the technologies
that artificial intelligence is fueling.
And with the potential to add trillions
of dollars to a nation’s GDP,
the race to become an
AI superpower is on.
In the age of AI, data is the new oil,
so China is the new Saudi Arabia.
That’s Kai-Fu Lee, he’s the author
of the new book, AI Superpowers
which explores China’s standing in
the world of artificial intelligence.
If you measure by research, basic research
papers published, excellence of research,
the U.S. is, and will be, ahead for the next
decade, but if you measure by value created,
how much market capitalization, how many users,
how much revenue, China probably is already ahead.
China’s rise in AI
is relatively recent.
In May 2017, China’s AI evolution reached a symbolic
moment, what some even called a wake up call.
Go is a game that’s been played
in China for thousands of years
and is said to be the world’s
most complex game.
19-year-old Ke Jie is also said
to be the world’s best player.
He was challenged to compete against Alphabet, the
parent company of Google in a three-game match.
He lost.
Less than two months after the defeat,
the Chinese central government
announced its ambitious plans to build
up artificial intelligence capabilities.
As part of its existing Made in
China 2025 plan, it aims to create
A Next Generation Artificial
Intelligence Development Plan.
The plan is broken up
into three benchmarks.
To keep pace with AI
technologies by 2020.
To achieve AI breakthroughs by 2025, and to
actually be the world leader in AI by 2030.
That same year in 2017, during a keynote
address to the ruling Communist Party,
Chinese President Xi Jinping said:
To get there, it’s investing a lot.
In 2017, Chinese venture-capital investors
poured record sums of money into AI,
making up 48 percent of all
AI venture funding globally.
Chinese startups raised $4.9 billion, while
their U.S. counterparts raised $4.4 billion.
But while the U.S.’ $4.4 billion is
made up of 155 investments,
just 19 investments made
up China’s $4.9 billion.
The innovation is still coming from the U.S. and that’s
thanks to obviously a huge network of universities
that are fed by the world's greatest talent, not
just Chinese engineers coming to the U.S.
and computer scientists, but also
from India and everywhere else.
So I think that advantage for the next
few years at least stays with the U.S.
This is Ben Harburg, a Beijing-based VC who’s
invested in the likes of Uber and MoBike.
I met him at East Tech West,
CNBC’s tech event in China.
What China has the ability to do is scale and monetize,
or commercialize, these types of technologies.
We have a much larger number of
graduates in the STEM fields in China,
that will certainly be coming back in further influencing
those in the development of those companies.
China will be where you monetize,
and by nature of the beast,
eventually they will start to innovate far
beyond the U.S., but a couple of years away.
China’s mobile-first market means more
people are doing everyday tasks on phones.
Naturally, that means
more data is available.
But experts tell me China’s rise in
AI boils down to several main factors.
Number one: Its population.
At around 1.4 billion people, it’s
the world’s largest country,
and thus there’s a lot of
possible data to be captured.
It’s done a fantastic job of
moving its economy to cashless.
And when you can pay with everything with
your phone, you amass a huge amount of data.
Thomas Friedman is an economist, New York Times
columnist and author of Thank You For Being Late.
The second factor is that China doesn’t have the
same restrictive privacy laws that the U.S. has,
making it easier for
companies to collect data.
In fact, not only are privacy laws less of a barrier in
China, but the government is buying technologies
to use data in an effort to capture unprecedented
amounts of information on its citizens.
If you get to self-driving
cars for instance,
there’s a massive amount of data that
those cars are going to spin off.
And if you've got those data sets, you’re
going to be able to do the improvements,
see the new jobs, products and services that
can be designed out of those data sets,
You’re going to see better and better, more
deeper insight patterns than anybody else,
and I think it’s going to be a
great advantage for China.
PwC says that by 2030, global GDP could
increase by 14 percent because of AI.
Its deployment will add $15.7 trillion to global
GDP, with China predicted to take $7 trillion.
That’s almost half of North America’s
projected gains of $3.7 trillion.
Yet, China’s AI development isn’t seeing
optimism across the board either,
with critics saying the sector is over-invested and
also skepticism around monetization for the industry.
Meanwhile, the vast amount of data being collected
scares critics who question the ethics of it all.
Not to mention, privacy laws in other parts
of the world, that flat out make it illegal.
But it’s hard to deny, the potential
for AI to transform industries.
And with that transformation could
also come a change in the workforce.
In fact, Kai-Fu Lee says AI will
be able to replace a whopping
40 to 50 percent of jobs
in the U.S. within 15 years.
Meanwhile, Friedman thinks the race in AI
could potentially come down to politics.
More specifically, President
Trump’s stance on immigration.
What really drove our economy forward,
what drives any economy, is that
we had a higher percentage than any
other country of high IQ risk takers.
High IQ risk takers are the people who
start new companies, new businesses, and
create new medical breakthroughs
and new engineering breakthroughs.
But Trump basically has put out a sign in
our front yard that says, "Get off my lawn."
I worry about that, I mean, I believe any foreigner,
who gets an advanced degree in America
should get a green card with the advanced
degree. We want those people.
And so, the idea that we’re pushing
these people away is sheer madness.
