Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent advance China’s AI development goals, says Microsoft research head

The mainland may be closing in on the US in developing artificial intelligence, led by its three main internet firms, says Microsoft’s Shum

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Harry Shum Heung-yeung, executive vice-president of Microsoft's artificial intelligence and research group, says AI is the ‘greatest business opportunity of our time’. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 7:30am, 6 Apr 2017Updated: 7:45am, 6 Apr 2017

Mainland China, led by its three largest internet companies, may be narrowing the gap with the United States in undertaking advanced research and development in the growing field of artificial intelligence, according to the head of software giant Microsoft’s AI organisation.

“This is probably the greatest business opportunity of our time, so all of the world’s major technology companies are now in the AI race,” Harry Shum Heung-yeung, the executive vice-president for the artificial intelligence and research group at Microsoft, told the South China Morning Post.

Baidu, Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings – the Chinese internet triumvirate collectively known under the acronym BAT – are “leading the way in China by investing heavily in AI”, he said.

All three BAT companies have sharpened their focus on AI research and development in recent years, following earlier initiatives pioneered in North America by institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and the University of Waterloo, as well as hi-tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, Google and Apple.

In the AI race between countries, the gap is now rather small because the latest and greatest technologies, including source code, are being shared online

Harry Shum Heung-yeung, Microsoft

While the study of AI dates back about 60 years, Shum said three things have converged to push forward recent advances: the existence of huge volumes of data, the availability of large amounts of computing power and breakthroughs in algorithm.