Figure: China will overtake the United States by 2030 in the field of artificial intelligence
According to investors Beijing time November 28 report, the United States has an enviable lead in the artificial intelligence technology out of the laboratory, into practical application.The United States has this advantage is Alphabet, Facebook and Apple, etc. the company.
But the Chinese government and the tech elite plan to surpass the United States in artificial intelligence by 2030.
In the field of artificial intelligence, China has many advantages: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent and other giants have not only invested heavily in artificial intelligence research, but also the recruitment of top talent in the world.
With a large population and a large amount of data to be used in the training of artificial intelligence systems, it is reasonable to think that China will make a breakthrough in the development of computer algorithms.
But China also has a big underdog: lagging behind the US semiconductor industry in producing high-end chips, which are mostly sourcing artificial intelligence chips from NVIDIA. Intel is also pushing hard for artificial intelligence.
David Kanter, head of chip industry consulting at Real World Insights, said that "most AI chips are being developed by US companies and it will take quite a while for China to overtake the United States in the field of artificial intelligence chips."
UBS forecasts that the market for artificial intelligence chips will grow from 6 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to 35 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. But artificial intelligence is more than just chip sales.
Artificial intelligence technology will revolutionize the economy, and artificial intelligence has always been called 'winner-take-all' technology, meaning that the advantages of the winning companies and nations will always enjoy the advantages.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that countries taking the lead in the field of artificial intelligence will gain an advantage in global affairs. "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for the whole of mankind. Being a leader in the field of artificial intelligence , Will become the master of the world '.
Putin's question is: Although its military electronics are first class, Russia does not have a high-end commodity chip.
All AI software is inseparable from the power of computing.One aspect of AI warfare is the development of artificial intelligence chips for data centers, autonomous vehicles, robots, smartphones, drones and other devices.
Gary Dickerson, chief executive of chip equipment maker Applied Materials, said in an interview that the 'artificial intelligence architecture leader war' was the biggest battle we had in our lifetime, saying that the dedicated chip for artificial intelligence software Coming soon.
Currently, the United States is at the forefront of establishing artificial intelligence companies and commercial deployments, and Fortune 500 companies in the United States are pushing artificial intelligence tools into areas such as finance, healthcare, energy, agriculture and cybersecurity.
Companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft have made advances in using artificial intelligence for speech recognition, Internet search and image classification. Amazon's artificial intelligence technology is being used in cloud computing services and smart speakers.
China Rises in the Field of Artificial Intelligence
China plans to overtake the United States in the field of artificial intelligence.
Chirag Dekate, a high-performance computing analyst at market research firm Gartner, said: "China plans to fight a protracted war and the United States is pushing artificial intelligence innovations in both software and hardware. In the early stages of artificial intelligence, The United States is walking in front of any other country, but China sees artificial intelligence competition as a marathon.
The Chinese government announced in July this year a three-step artificial intelligence development strategy and is planning to become a leader in global artificial intelligence by 2030.
Talent is the key to China's artificial intelligence strategy. Chinese research institutes publish artificial intelligence papers faster and the number of patents in robots and other fields is rapidly increasing. Chinese Internet companies have set up artificial intelligence research departments in Silicon Valley. Baidu and other Chinese companies have also adopted the high salary Attract the world's top AI talent to join.
China urgently needs to develop high-end artificial intelligence chips by 2030. Temasek's Vertex said in a report on China that 'computing power is one of the foundational elements of artificial intelligence and of strategic importance. The control over the core technology supply chain Which may strengthen China's ability to deploy artificial intelligence systems in the future. '
Artificial intelligence strategy of American chip maker
Just a few years ago, the AI research project also called for hundreds of computers to be networked and run complex software. "Market research firm CBI Insights said in a report that one of the keys to the popularity of artificial intelligence is the new wave of artificial intelligence chips .
NVIDIA has become an early leader in the field of artificial intelligence chips. The strength of NVIDIA is its powerful 'parallel processing capability' that allows its PC graphics chips to run AI software.
Baidu is NVIDIA's partner in autonomous vehicles, and NVIDIA said in September that Alibaba and Tencent will use their artificial intelligence chips in data centers.
Intel also completed several acquisitions in the area of artificial intelligence, and Intel said it is working with Facebook to develop artificial intelligence chips for cloud computing services.
In the United States, developing artificial intelligence chips is more than just traditional semiconductor companies. Google's strategy is to converge software and chip technologies with its TensorFlow data center software running on its own 'TPU' chip.
Apple iPhone X equipped with artificial intelligence technology, A11 bionic chips that support face recognition technology.Analysts said the A11 bionic chip is just Apple's entry into the field of artificial intelligence chips.
U.S. government protects high-end chip technology
The U.S. government has been quite wary of protecting high-end chip technology.
The Trump administration halted Chinese-owned acquisitions of Lattice Semiconductor Corp. in September this year on national security grounds. Lattice's programmable software technology can be used to develop artificial intelligence chips.
In 2015, the Obama administration banned Intel, Nvidia and AMD from selling high-end computer chips to China.
Chinese scientists launched the Taihu Lake, one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, just a year after some observers saw the light of the Taihu Lake as a sign of China's competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence chips.
China invests heavily in artificial intelligence
China is still far away from producing artificial intelligence chips for the mass market. A company called the Cambrian Technology-based Artificial Intelligence chip startup attracted the investments of Alibaba, Lenovo Capital and IETF; Vertex is an investor in the startup horizon robot .
Huawei also has its own AI project.
While marching into the field of artificial intelligence, China also plans to invest heavily in the semiconductor industry, which the United States government estimates will have invested 20 billion U.S. dollars in a chip industry project with a total investment of up to 150 billion U.S. dollars.
China needs most high-end chips still need to be purchased from foreign suppliers Intel, AMD and ARM are the dominant technology in the field of microprocessors.
In an AI report released in September, Goldman Sachs said that "the process of establishing China's home-grown semiconductor industry has been slow to make progress and we expect China's reliance on foreign countries in the chip area will decline over time."
Media reports said Google is interested in promoting its TensorFlow artificial intelligence software tools to Chinese technology companies, although it is unclear whether the negotiations will involve Google's artificial intelligence chips.
CBI Insights said VC investments are also on the rise, and while NVIDIA graphics chips have gained early lead, artificial intelligence startups have started out developing chips that run on artificial intelligence software, including Graphcore, KnuEdge, and Cerebras Systems.