Online giants zero in on AI industry

the next 20 to 50 years,” Li said.

At a separate AI conference in Beijing last week, Zhang Yongqiang, deputy director of Zhongguancun Management Committee, said the AI industry would see a “new age,” promoted by many government policies.

In May last year, the government made a three-year action plan to develop AI.

The industry market size was 23.9 billion yuan ($3.5 billion) last year and will reach 38 billion yuan in 2018, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

AI has been applied widely in security, finance and the medical fields. DeepGlint is a Beijing-based company which has developed a smart video surveillance system, which it said can help police track suspects.

“If you upload facial images — or other information such as clothing, height, body size and car license plate numbers into the system — it will scan huge amounts of video for matches,” said Zhao Yong, DeepGlint’s founder.

“It is impossible for police officers to scan millions of hours of video footage to locate a suspect, but it is possible for the system to do it.”

“Machines can do what people can’t. We must make machines our best partner, rather than letting them replace us,” said Jack Ma, founder of internet commerce giant Alibaba.

“We should not be worried about how much the internet is impacting traditional business. Rather, we have to use internet and AI to our advantage.”