Companies eye dawning of golden age for rapidly growing sector
SHENZHEN — Executives at Chinese internet giants, including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, are making a gamechanging shift in strategy to focus on the development of artificial intelligence and believe the next decades will be a golden age for the rapidlydeveloping industry.
“We used to see artificial intelligence only as a way to improve our computing and processing abilities. But, actually, AI can use data to develop a self-learning ability and generate its own rules,” said Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, at the China IT Summit in Shenzhen on Sunday.
In March 2016, Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo scored a landmark 4-1 victory over South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol in a fiveround showdown. The machine’s victory was noted by AI enthusiasts around the world.
Tencent developed its own AI program, Jueyi, which has scored several key victories in matches around the world.
“If we develop a simulator, define its parameters, let it fully explore, study and make mistakes, programs will figure out how things work, far exceeding our imagination,” Ma said.
Ma said Chinese IT companies are actively developing AI.
“Many companies are seizing territory,” Ma said.
Internet giant Baidu set up a
AI can use data to develop a selflearning ability and generate its own rules.” Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent
... national deep learning technology lab in Beijing in March. The lab gathered AI experts from Baidu, Tsinghua University, Beihang University and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
“The internet is just an appetizer. The main course will be AI. In the future, machines will develop to a point where they can understand humans and their intentions,” said Baidu Chairman Li Yanhong.
Baidu has invested heavily in machine-aided study, image recognition, voice recognition and driverless vehicles.
“AI will be a magnanimous industry that will last for a very long time. I’m certain that the industry will develop fast over