AI HORIZON: CHINA'S COMPUTING POWER REVERSING INNOVATION'S INEQUALITY

By Kai-Fu Lee
The MIT Press, 258pp, £24.95 (June 2018)

In the race between the United States and China to dominate Artificial Intelligence (AI), who is going to win? The victor of this coming contest will not only achieve the coveted title of Technology Leader, but also be guaranteed tremendous economic and military advantages in the future. And today, a prominent figure in China’s AI industry has declared that the balance of power will soon tip in China’s favour. Bing Xu, co-founder of the Chinese AI powerhouse Sensetime, recently confidently asserted at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai that ‘China will soon catch up with the US in AI computing power’. What is the extent of China’s achievement in AI, and where do things stand now? Let’s take a closer look at this developing story to understand how China’s leap forward is at once a challenge and an opportunity on the global stage.

THE ACCELERATED ASCENT OF CHINA'S AI AMBITIONS

Breaking New Ground in AI COMPUTING

Given China’s ambitious bid for AI supremacy, this all sounds a bit haphazard. But it isn’t. Instead, it is the result of strategic planning, heavy investment, and a commitment to supporting an ecosystem that allows AI to flourish. Big investment has been made by the government in AI research and infrastructure, contributing to China’s fast-growing expertise in this critical domain. A lot of the investment has gone into natural language processing and computer vision, where the AI opportunity is greatest but currently least developed.

THE DATA ADVANTAGE: CHINA'S ACE IN THE HOLE

Data is at the heart of AI’s development: think of it as the fuel for the car of AI. And here, China has an advantage. Nothing feeds the AI engine like data, and with more than one billion people and significant systematic push to collect data, China has a very large amount of it. That data is useful for training more complex AI models that can continue to refine their response, and become better at what they do.

CHINA VS. THE US: AN AI RIVALRY

Bridging the Technological Gulf

Sensetime’s co-founder’s claim that ‘within a year or two, China will catch up with the US in AI compute power’ is a sign that a new era has dawned for technology: with this development, China is making a truly transformative leap – and it might not be so long before we have AI parity between these two global powers.

A LOOK AHEAD: THE FUTURE OF AI DOMINANCE

Collaboration Amid Competition

We would do well to dwell on the collaborative potential that might lie in this competition. In emerging market after emerging market, AI is transforming business models and reshaping the conceptual underpinnings of industries. In this labour division, the US and China could discover new opportunities for cooperation, harnessing each other’s comparative advantages to tackle global problems together. Co-innovating could reduce risks and enhance the positive impacts that AI can provide to society.

THE STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

To grasp the battle being waged between China and the US, it helps to understand just how profound AI’s competitive advantage truly is. Because AI is inherently cross-disciplinary, its advantage is not merely a matter of computing power or data. It is about innovation, economic growth, national security and social wellbeing. By structurally integrating AI, countries can transform entire industries, bolster defence and open up new realms of scientific and medical discovery.

The story of China’s rise to AI parity with the US reveals a new world dynamic in which technological supremacy is key. The quests of both countries to realise the potential of artificial intelligence point to the historic implications of AI in redefining the globe’s new pecking order.