Digital economy and AI key to China’s post-internet future, say country’s tech leaders
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Chinese tech leaders articulated their vision for the post-internet future at the World Internet Conference held this past week, with artificial intelligence, complete digitisation of the economy and a call for more basic science being among the topics of discussion – though it was mostly a local affair with the absence of high profile US tech company representatives amid the ongoing US-China trade war.
“Artificial intelligence and the internet represent two different eras,” said Baidu CEO Robin Li Yanhong on Thursday. “We will step into the AI era in the coming three to five decades while the previous 20 years belonged to internet.”
Baidu, which operates China's largest internet search engine, is a so-called AI national champion with its efforts in the field endorsed by the central government. It was also the first Chinese company to join an international AI ethics group set up last month, alongside members such as Apple and Alphabet’s Google.
“AI will not only impact the consumer internet, but will completely change most industries and services to business,” said Li at a panel discussion with Tencent Holdings founder Pony Ma Huateng, who recently laid out a plan for the company’s industrial internet ambitions.
“Most industries have not achieved ‘digitisation’ and Tencent will play an assistant role to help digitise the industrial internet process,” said Ma. He said the company wants to enable greater connectivity across Chinese industry, leveraging the capabilities and expertise it has built to serve the billion-plus users of its consumer-facing platforms like WeChat.
The World Internet Conference, the brainchild of disgraced former internet tsar Lu Wei, has been held annually since 2014 in the picturesque canal town of Wuzhen in northern Zhejiang province. The event brings together government officials and local and international company executives for discussions on the impact of internet and technology in general. However, the overseas turnout at this year’s conference was affected by the ongoing trade war between China and the US.