China risks falling further behind the US in AI if it does not step up basic research, academic says
- Advances in AI have slowed in past two years, meaning real progress can only be made by breakthroughs, Peking University professor says
China risks a catastrophic loss in competitive advantage to the US in artificial intelligence (AI) if it does not invest more in basic research, according to Peking University professor Wang Liwei.
The next technology breakthrough is more likely to happen in America than in China because the latter trails in basic academic research, said Wang, who specialises in machine perception and is a member of the China Computer Federation’s AI and pattern recognition committee. With a tech war raging, China could find itself cut off from the latest advancements in the technology, he said.
“I think the ability to make such a breakthrough represents the real level of AI development of a country,” Wang said in an interview in Shanghai last week. “You can imagine what will happen if it’s in the US, not in China.”
China is engaged in a race with the US in AI development, with China’s State Council issuing a three-step plan in 2017 to make the country a global leader in the technology by 2030. It is a battle fought in the laboratories in universities and companies as much as in real-life application and strategic thinkers in both countries see mastery of AI as a key to unlocking future economic and military gains.
China lags behind the US in the global talent needed to power AI research and development. China has fewer than 30 universities with AI labs. Forty per cent of data scientists in China have less than five years of working experience, while in the US, more than half of the researchers have more than 10 years of experience. China also has about half of the global AI talent compared to the US, according to the 2018 Deloitte AI report.