Shanghai positions itself as nation’s AI hub

Shanghai is looking to become China’s hot-spot for artificial intelligence and wants to expand the industry scale in the city to more than 100 billion yuan ($15.06 million) by 2020, according to a new municipal plan issued on Tuesday.

The Opinion on Promoting the City’s Next Generation of AI Development was published on the municipal government website, outlining 21 measures to boost the industry. These include steps like forming a world class industry cluster, nurturing 10 benchmark AI innovative enterprises with substantial influence, building six AI innovative application demonstration areas and launching more than 100 application demonstration projects.

“Shanghai’s rich big data resources, wide application of smart technologies, sufficient industries, as well as its affluent research talents have laid a solid foundation for the development of the AI industry,” said Chen Mingbo, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology.

According to Chen, although Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, the trio of Chinese internet giants, are not based in Shanghai, the city could be the birthplace of AI unicorn companies, as its conditions are mature.