China a powerhouse as AI race intensifies

CHINA is emerging as a global powerhouse in the AI race, second only to the United States, a report released yesterday showed.

Globally, the US still dominates the AI industry, according to the 2020 Global AI Innovation Index Report that was released at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. It was way ahead of the 46 surveyed countries with a score of 66.31 points while China ranked second with 50.6.

The report was co-drafted by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China and the Peking University.

As a developing country, China outperformed the other developed countries and is currently in the best position to challenge the US as it has been accelerating building data infrastructure, making technological breakthroughs and expanding its talent pool, the report said.

South Korea came in third. Twenty-four countries with points between 15 to 30 were in the third-tier. Most of them were West European countries, namely Luxembourg, Belgium and Austria. From the BRICS bloc, Russia ranked 24th, India came in at 26th and Brazil at 33rd.

In the four key indicators, China was excellent in “AI infrastructure,” “AI R&D,” and “AI industrial application,” ranking No. 4, No. 3 and No. 3, respectively. But it was eighth for “AI innovation resource and environment.”

China grabbed the first spot in the list of countries with the most advanced supercomputer centers. By July 2020, 226 of China’s supercomputer centers had entered the global top 500 list, twice the number than the US.

China has also grown in the field of AI R&D. In 2019, Chinese scholars released 55,200 AI-related papers, including 3,555 in top academic journals and meetings, becoming the most prolific AI scholars in the world.

China also has the world’s second-highest number of AI companies. By September 2020, China had 823 AI companies with at least ten workers. The companies had totally obtained an investment of US$37.7 billion.

However, China lagged in AI education. For every 1 million workers, only 290 were engaged in the AI industry. Contrast that with Singapore, which topped in this category with 7,133 AI practitioners for every 1 million people.