China is home to more than half of world’s top AI unicorns as battle for supremacy with US heats up
- Chinese AI start-ups raised US$4.9 billion in 2017, nudging out their US counterparts which had US$4.4 billion in funding
China is home to the most number of artificial intelligence start-ups valued at US$1 billion or above, according to CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture capital activity.
Six of the 11 so-called unicorns in the annual compilation of top AI start-ups are from China, with SenseTime taking top spot with a valuation of US$4.5 billion.
Two Chinese facial recognition companies on the list, SenseTime and Face++, also received the most equity funding among all AI start-ups, raising US$1.6 billion and US$608 million respectively, according to CB Insights.
Other top AI unicorns from China include Yitu Technology, 4Paradigm, and autonomous driving companies Pony.ai and Momenta.
The rankings highlight China’s efforts in developing technology that has been dubbed the fourth industrial revolution. In an ambitious three-step blueprint, China wants to catch up with the US in AI technology and applications by 2020, see major breakthroughs by 2025, and become a global leader in the field by 2030.
The US has become increasingly wary about China’s ambitions to lead in these technologies and taken steps to check the expansion of companies such as Huawei Technologies in areas, such as 5G mobile networks, that will underpin the rollout of these applications.
Around one-fifth of the top 500 applicants, ranked by number of patents, are from universities and public research organisations from China.