10 ms·

China’s AI Awakening

186 points by eaxitect 9y ago

idibidiart 9y ago
Thb, most of the interesting work I've seen has come out of Silicon Valley. What breakthroughs have come from China?
- kobeya 9y ago
  Baidu & Deep Speech? That was actually developed in Silicon Valley though, as that's where Baidu's AI lab is.
- ericflo 9y ago
  Off the top of my head, didn't ResNet come out of MSRA?
  - mljoe 9y ago
    Yes. ResNet was CVPR paper of the year last year. This year DenseNet has a first author from Tsinghua University (Dr. Zhuang Liu). I feel like the importance of China in machine learning is very hard to dispute these days. At least they are open about it, which is good for scientific development worldwide.
- kercker 9y ago
  Can you give some examples of these interesting work?
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    The one posted yesterday from OpenAI. Hierarchical learning. Also, DeepMind's relational NN. I can dig up others from memor after caffiene. DeepMind is at Google which is a Silicon Valley co. True about Canada, but salaries in Canada do not support retention of talent, so most end up in SV in the long run or get acquired by SV companies.
    - paulfitz 9y ago
      (DeepMind is part of the Alphabet group, true, but is based in London, with some research people in Canada and some applied people in California.)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- abhinavkulkarni 9y ago
  Most 'breakthroughs' in AI have come from Canada, not Silicon Valley.
  - chronicy292 9y ago
    Then why do all the AI folks and startups in Toronto et al. dream of moving to silicon valley with the outrageous rent and home prices?
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    Canada is definitely underappreciated, but you might be overstating it a bit... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2017/10/04/chicago-collaborative-sets-sights-on-restoring-a-nearly-vacant-town/#300bcb3a55b4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2017/10/04/chicag...
- mitchdoogle 9y ago
  The article says that China is investing heavily in AI now, in reaction to the breakthroughs happening elsewhere. It suggests that breakthroughs over the next decade will be coming from China.
- exelius 9y ago
  Much of the interesting work is done by Chinese nationals, many of whom feel the startup field in the US is slanted towards white people, so they go back to China and take their knowledge with them. US research institutes are top-notch, but our casual racism and xenophobia are killing us. Not that the Chinese aren't also racist and xenophobic, but the pendulum of power is definitely swinging back across the Pacific.
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    That is a good point but China is a dictatorship and a censoring anti-democracy regime. I can't imagine putting up with that either.
    - exelius 9y ago
      Chinese culture values harmony and stability over individualism and total freedom. The actions of the individual glorify the group; and they view "dictators" as more of a "father-like figurehead". They look at the US and see the problems we have (crime, gun control, health care, etc) and can point to their own society and say "well, we solved all of those so our system is better." Many young Chinese who were educated in the US feel this way, so it's not a generational thing. This is a cultural tradition stretching back many thousands of years. The world view of a person from China is very different than that of an American. Also, consider that an AI researcher returning to China is likely going to be in the top 1% of society. Dictatorial societies tend to be pretty good for the people at the top. The Chinese startup market is hotter than the US at this point too; and it's basically restricted to people born in a handful of Chinese cities. The Chinese government intentionally stacks the deck to get them to return.
      - it_learnses 9y ago
        Understandable for Chinese nationals to go back. But for someone like Ng, who was born and educated here, it seems very irresponsible.
        9y ago
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Thb, most of the interesting work I've seen has come out of Silicon Valley. Like, social websites and apps? >What breakthroughs have come from China? Like tons of actual innovations in hardware, screens, storage, materials science, manufacturing methods, robotics, biology, and other fields?
- idibidiart 9y ago
  Still with all these hurt feelings etc, what breakthrough work has come of out of China?
- rawnlq 9y ago
  Due to the language barrier, there is a lot of interesting work that we will never "see". For example I was randomly looking through text recognition competition results and found out Tencent has an AI lab that took first place: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=1&com=evaluation&task=4 http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=1&com=evaluation&task=4. But I was unable to find any information about them. They have github repos with thousands of stars but the community is entirely in chinese: https://github.com/Tencent/ncnn/issues https://github.com/Tencent/ncnn/issues
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    I believe TenCent AI Lab is based in Silicon Valley.
    - kercker 9y ago
      According to its recruit page (http://ai.tencent.com/ailab/recruit.html http://ai.tencent.com/ailab/recruit.html), they have researchers in US and Shenzhen, China.
shadowmint 9y ago
Extremely relevant quote from the talented Mr Ng: > “When the Chinese government announces a plan like this, it has significant implications for the country and the economy,” says Andrew Ng, a prominent AI expert who previously oversaw AI technology and strategy at China’s biggest online search company, Baidu. “It’s a very strong signal to everyone that things will happen.” ie. There is going to be a tonne of money poured into this. Will it make a difference, tangibly to economic transformation? Who knows... ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this. More interesting: will it be as transformative as everyone is hoping?
- monkmartinez 9y ago
  > ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this. What are they currently leading?
  - pavanred 9y ago
    I would guess manufacturing
  - sniperjzp 9y ago
    Internet related area, like payment service, on demand market, cloud computing, etc.
    - elefanten 9y ago
      Scale of deployment is not technology leadership
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        It seems we need to agree on a definition of "technology leadership" before discussing it further - otherwise it's too easy to keep moving the goalpost.
it_learnses 9y ago
Scientists like Ng ought to consider the repercussions of their actions when they decide to aid Chinese companies, and by extension, the Chinese govt with cutting edge research. They are basically collaborating with the enemy that stands against pretty much everything that the west granted them (scientists like Ng who were born here and given the opportunities).
- dforrestwilson 9y ago
  ? What exactly did the west grant them? They're catching up after decades of communism, and creeping towards becoming a dictatorship for Xi. That will likely negatively impact their growth far more than the actions (or inactions) of the West.
  - it_learnses 9y ago
    Ng was born and educated in the west. That's the point I'm making.
    - caio1982 9y ago
      ...and that’s an irrelevant point.
  - abecedarius 9y ago
    It’s not that China’s economic growth is bad for the west (I think that’s good on its own terms); it’s that tyranny is bad for us all. Helping to entrench it is very short-sighted. There has never been a modern AI-assisted tyranny before, for one thing, and we don’t know how stable that might become. It’s reckless to expect it to just fall apart like the Soviet Union, especially since the rulers consciously learned from that history.
- denzil_correa 9y ago
  Does this mean we should all stop using Chinese products like most of the phones made in the USA?
nopinsight 9y ago
Key competitive advantages of China are their strength in quantitative skills, a huge population, and the hard working and competitive culture of the populace. An objective measure is PISA results [1]. When comparing with even the best performing US state, Massachusetts, China has many more top performers in Math, as a proportion of population [2]. (In 2015 only four provinces of China participated, but their combined population was 230 million vs Massachusetts's 6.8 million. The math result of Shanghai (24 million pop.) alone would show an even larger gap.) Since PISA results are scaled such that OECD country's mean is 500 and standard deviation is 100, China's 531 math score implies country mean at 0.3 SD above PISA mean, and US' math score at 470 implies 0.3 SD below mean. If people capable of doing AI research or proper AI implementation need to have math skills at, say, 2 SD above PISA mean, then there will be a tremendous difference in proportion between two populations with 0.6 SD difference. My back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming above figures, is the proportion will be about five times as large. But China has more than 4 times the population of the US, so the difference in potential numbers of AI-capable natives could be around 20 times. (Since other provinces may drag down China's mean, it could be a bit less. An opposite influence is increasing wealth and thus more resources devoted to education, both by parents and the state. We'll see soon since China as a whole will participate in PISA 2018.) Moreover, the Chinese government is pushing AI and programming education into their education system, starting from the primary level [3]. The distinct advantage of the US is that it is the magnet for top talents and ambitious people from all over the world, including the Chinese, so it might continue to lead for a while. However, if the US becomes inhospitable to talents or potential talents, it is clear that China with its quality and quantity of human resources will soon take the lead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St... [2] http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/usa1?lg=en http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/usa1?lg=en [3] http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0828/c90000-9261282.html http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0828/c90000-9261282.html
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Also, my previous comment in a thread on China's progress in quantum computing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15535241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15535241 China's advances in AI are impressive as well. A ranking based on publications at top conferences from 2012 to present (2017) has both Beijing and Tsinghua University in the world's top 5. http://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp http://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp (The starting year in the link needs to be changed to 2012.) Many of the top researchers in US academia are mainland Chinese. I wonder if they will be enticed back home when the Chinese government has managed to reduce the pollution in their major cities down to healthy levels. It appears that the salary for top people there, especially those with experience at major Western institutions, is comparable to those in the US in nominal terms, and the research funding is easier to get.
dis-sys 9y ago
I was reading the USNews CS ranking yesterday, got really surprised that apparently some Chinese universities are now considered as the best in CS. top 20 list: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/search?region=&subject=computer-science&name= https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/se... https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science?page=2 https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/co...
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  Keep in mind they also have some pretty significant plagarism and pay-to-publish problems.
  - yorison 9y ago
    Keep in mind it's the lower end schools that have the plagarism and pay-to-publish problems. The top schools never had this problem.
- tooltalk 9y ago
  Well, it's interesting to see that the USNews ranks Harvard ahead of UCBerkeley. Back when I used to work at a quant shop in NYC, Harvard wasn't even considered for hiring -- they only recruited from MIT, CMU, UIUC, Berkeley, Stanford and UToronto. Also, not surprisingly, most quants were Chinese.
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    Trust your own expertise. I can’t find the paper where I got this from but if you rank CS departments by where professors got their doctorates and where they end up teaching the basically equal top four were Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. Which four would round out the world Top 10? Georgia Tech? Aren’t a ton of quants French as well?
- randcraw 9y ago
  Caveat: the US News rankings are famously cooked and unreliable. You'd expect that from a cash cow that singularly keeps the US News brand alive, as well as the deliberate efforts of universities to drive up their brand's rank. According to Wiki, three more independent and open source of rankings are the Acad. Ranking of World Univs, Times Higher Education, and Quaccquarelli Symonds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_ranking... The Chronicle of Higher Education is also a well-regarded rater, esp. in assessment of research. http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-World-University-Rankings/141971 http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-World-University-Rankin...
indescions_2017 9y ago
Hmmm. MIT Tech Review now behind cognito-only browser shield? Is that new? What's really interesting is the continued trend of cashless WeChat Pay adoption in China versus say trickling Digital Payments penetration here in USA. I actually just had to order a new replacement set of paper checks. And its simply due to the fact that so many small merchants cite higher credit card fees as a reason for preferring cash or checks for payments. Coupled with AI, I think this preference for instant, fee-less digital payments will translate into convenience stores without cashiers. Auto repair shops where you just drop off your faulty electric vehicle and hop into a loaner without actually interacting with a customer service agent. And thousands of other technology-mediated retail experiences. It's Asian consumer adoption and demand driving AI solutions from the bottom up. And that makes it much more likely to result in first mover advantage and the potential for game-changing breakthroughs.
- rcpt 9y ago
  One advantage China has in payments is the lack of incumbent credit corporations. In the United States credit cards were widely deployed and trusted decades ago while in China tech companies have an open playing field where real innovation can happen fast.
  - randcraw 9y ago
    That's a competitive advantage when it arises against competitors that you're willing to destroy. But in the years ahead, China's major competition will arise increasingly within China. That portends a lot of internal disruption of the status quo which the government is unlikely to anticipate (like the ongoing explosion of e-commerce there and its immeasurable disruption of the day-to-day lives of established retailers). Despite China's outward enthusiasm for advancement, high speed change promises to destabilize the totalitarian gov't, which suggests that a bumpy ride lies ahead.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I haven’t used a personal check states side in many many years; I don’t even bother ordering them anymore going for a cashiers check on the rare case I need a check for something. And when was the last time you went to an ATM in the states, maybe once every 6 months? In contrast, up until a few years ago, I had to bring a backpack full of 100 RMB notes to pay my rent every 3 months. China has made a transition for sure, but don’t forget the local problems they were solving (poor penetration of UnionPay, poor online payment facilities). And online retail and a godsend when you consider the horrible state owned department store system and anemic brick and mortar retail clones they replaced. Chinese companies will probably change the game in china, it as long as they are focused and limited to local problems, I don’t see how it will effect the west very much.
bluetwo 9y ago
Whenever I read articles like this I'm really looking for the million dollar idea. Solving Go is good. Solving Poker is better. Best would be solving a high-value business problem for which a solution using AI can be developed.
- NHQ 9y ago
  Care to hazard some examples of the latter?
  - skriticos2 9y ago
    I can think of two: supply chain management (producing stuff more effectively) and market trend analysis (know what people will buy tomorrow - to build it when it's needed). The first involves a lot of people networking and dealing with the messy bits (hard) while the later is looking into the crystal ball with help of some data to extrapolate likely outcomes (somewhat hard). There is also logistics (again tons of messy bits), customer service (interacting with people), transportation (now this is probably the lowest hanging fruit - which is why everyone and their dog is chasing it). Just of the top of my hat.. of course there is R&D (hard), design (hard), bureaucracy (bookkeeping, process management, etc. - easy in theory, not so much in practice) -- well, and all the other things that we humans do during a day of business. We could also involve politics, government and philosophy - but that would probably be stretching it. ps. I also suck at counting, so maybe that too.
    - bluetwo 9y ago
      I don't think politics and government are a stretch. In fact that's the direction I'm considering. I don't think transportation is very easy, it's just that the value is high and honestly, there is this trillion dollar asset (the nation's roadways) that companies are going to be able to leverage for a very low cost, which makes it appealing.
    - NHQ 9y ago
      Thanks, I like crystal ball ideas.
Dowwie 9y ago
there was a time when the U.S. had a leader who declared a bipartisan mission to do something great and worthy of the effort and the U.S. accomplished that mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuW4oGKzVKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuW4oGKzVKc -- fast forward to ~7:40minutes for most relevant AI is the new moon shot of our time but its rally cries are emanating by leaders of U.S corporations for the maximization of profit of their shareholders where as in China they are emanating by the leaders of the state for reasons far exceeding short-term economic gains
AElsinore77 9y ago
Another key trend to consider - China's labor costs are growing up to 2x per year: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-... China's push for AI is a recognition that the loss of one advantage (cheap human labor) could be replaced by another (cheap machine labor).
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  They're not growing 2x every year. Even the article you linked says "“China’s labor costs are increasing, or doubling, every few years,”" In any case, the advantage of cheap human labour has already been replaced by what you call 'cheap machine labour'. China has been able to dominate manufacturing in large part by giving companies access to cheap capital, which allows them to invest in machines. Silicon chips aren't made by hand. PCBs aren't soldered by hand.
LostInTheWoods2 9y ago
The plan calls for homegrown AI to match that developed in the West within three years, for China’s researchers to be making “major breakthroughs” by 2025, and for Chinese AI to be the envy of the world by 2030. Really? Major breakthroughs can be mandated by a centralized government? Back in the 80s-90s, Americans were convinced that Japan was going to eat its lunch. It gives me some hope in knowing that we still suffer from this complex.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  US government basically mandated the Moon landings, and they happened within 12 years from Sputnik. So I'd say yes, sometimes a government can just mandate progress.
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    Dont DARPA and other US gov research groups have a pretty long track record of successful projects? Computers, nukes, ICs, space, internet, self-driving cars, etc. They seem to be some of the most well used research money -- precisely the government mandating progress.
    - gph 9y ago
      True, but a lot of those were more specific in their end goals. What exactly is China going for here? Sounds like just general AI research and advancement. That's not a bad thing, but I think it'll probably end up more like the Human Genome Project. We'll get some great fundamental science and advancement out of it, but it's probably going to lead to more open-ended questions instead of the world-changing end results that get hyped at the beginning.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      > Dont DARPA and other US gov research groups have a pretty long track record of successful projects? And many failures too. You can't just buy whatever innovation you want with money; if that were true we wouldn't still have energy problems and powerlines for distributing it.
strin 9y ago
Another competitive advantage of China is data. China has 1.4B population, and nearly everyone in the country owns a mobile phone. This will contribute data 3-4 times larger than US. Considering second-order interactions (network effect), the data could be an order of magnitude larger. Chinese citizen also seems less concerned about their privacy. I've talked to one of the largest chat platforms in China, and they seems very open to share their conversation datasets with third-parties for dialogue research. In high-value verticals like healthcare, there is also less regulation compared to U.S. For example, it's easy to start a AI + radiology company in China and have access to hospital patient data, without going through tedious approval process.
- eighthnate 9y ago
  Excellent point. But you have to factor in american companies international reach. Chinese companies dominate china and that is extremely lucrative, but american tech companies dominate europe and the americas and the rest of the world. Europe and at americas combined have a larger population than china and a geographical landmass 3X larger than china. The real question is why europe ( 800 million people ) and latin america ceded their tech industry and data to the US. If data is the oil of the 21st century, then the US, china and india are going to rule the nest. Europe has no future and neither does south america. I under why china, russia, etc had protected their own internal industries to compete against FB, GOOGL, TWTR, AMZN, etc. I just don't understand why europe, south america, etc haven't. All europe/south america have/had to do is invest a few billion to capture a few trillion in wealth. Instead, they've ceded all that wealth to predominately american tech companies. It's very strange when you think about it.
  - nrhk 9y ago
    Is it though, your talking about a federation of democratic and culturally different nations to two locked down regimes with homogeneous societies. I don't think Europe could do what China and Russia did even if they tried.
    - taobility 9y ago
potbelly83 9y ago
What I never understood, if China is so great, why then do large parts of their upper middle class/upper class buy property in foreign countries and send their kids to school their? It's not as if the American upper class are purchasing houses in Beijing for their kids.
- beisner 9y ago
  The United States was once seen as uncultured, unrefined, and frankly quite weak by most of Western Europe until the late 1800's. And in many respects it was. Now the US is the richest country in the world, and is where wealthy non-Americans send their children and make land investments. My point is that trajectory is more relevant to these discussions than current state of affairs. The quality of life of the average Chinese citizen (and more so the upper-middle class Chinese citizen) has increased DRAMATICALLY in the last 40 years. So when people talk about China's potential, they aren't talking about the situation in the next 5 or 10 years. They're talking about who is going exert massive international influence in the next 50 years. So you're right, most westerners aren't buying speculative property in Beijing (despite the fact that housing in central Beijing is nearly as expensive as New York City), but I'd wager there's a good chance of that changing in the next 50 years.
  - potbelly83 9y ago
    interesting perspective, thanks
  - indemnity 9y ago
    I think a missing piece of the puzzle is: It’s not clear to me that my property rights would be respected, should I be able to buy property in China (which, as a foreigner, I can’t do anyway, the government only leases it to you at best). Western countries have a much better record in this regard.
    - beisner 9y ago
      While you’re technically correct about the government leasing property, in practice buying the rights to land for residential use is in practice effectively the same as buying the land. There are a lot of things like that in China, where the system is nominally socialist, but in practice things are just as capitalistic (if not more so) as they are in western countries.
rdrey 9y ago
Sorry, my questions might reflect that I don't know much about China / Chinese culture. I'm curious about compensation. Can Chinese AI researchers earn equally well in China as abroad? Or are they going to suffer from brain drain eventually? How does the Communist Party / society deal with large pay gaps? Are Chinese companies with AI departments looking for international talent that's not at the uppermost level?
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Yes. China pays well, not just for AI researchers, but specialized tech talent in general. They attract workers from Taiwan, Korea, Japan for the better paycheck accordingly, where tech workers aren’t valued as much.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
I'm getting a bit of a flashback to the Japanese Fifth Gneeration Computing project (I wasn't around back then; I've read about it though). Then, too, an East Asian country (Japan) known for excellence in one field (manufacturing) initiated a state-funded research project into a promising technology (AI). Then, too, the West reacted with alarm, fearing the Asians would leave them in the dust. Then, too, the project was about AI. Except, back then, it didn't go too well [1]. But, perhaps this is just pattern matching failure on my part and nothing is even remotely the same today. ____________________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I wonder if the late 80s are repeating themselves in more ways than one. Huge domestic asset bubble waiting to pop including massive speculation in foreign real estate, and perhaps even a 3rd AI winter? It doesn’t have to happen the same way, of course.
- whb07 9y ago
  This should be the top post. Marc Andreesen commented back when he was in college he was freaking about the Japanese taking over tech and how he was worried he didn’t know Japanese.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  The current crop of AIs is already starting to make a big impact in commercial and other spheres. All of the major tech giants in the US and China are using AI in their offerings and behind the scenes. There are substantial differences between the two eras.
killjoywashere 9y ago
Pro tip for folks looking to take a job with a Chinese company: this will prevent you from jumping to some jobs in the US. The defense sector will want you to be not employed by the Chinese for at least a year before letting you work on defense-related jobs (yes, they will audit your employer).
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Well, if you marry a Chinese, you can also kiss your security clearance goodbye. I don’t think it matters to most of outside the DC/Virginia area.
  - killjoywashere 9y ago
    There's a fair amount of DoD contract work being done all over the country.
noetic_techy 9y ago
Has China produced a single major AI breakthrough with all these cited papers? Just because they have a lot of papers written doesn't mean anything. Quality vs Quantity. You can take technology developed by others and copy it all you want, and assign all your grad students to write something publishable about it, but unless you innovate in it, I wouldn't say you are a world leader. At best you may see novel applications of AI tasking come out of China, and people will falsely equate this with "China is beating us at AI." I still think the General AI breakthrough will come from Western researchers out of the box thinking.
- mazerackham 9y ago
  ya, i mean, how could anyone think that those robots from China can think outside of the box right? /sarcasm
- AlexCoventry 9y ago
  Yes, lots. StackGAN comes to mind.
dataronin 9y ago
I am a Chinese born AI researcher and I've had most of my higher education in the US. The funny thing is that when I was a high schooler in China, I was not particularly good at math and basically hated anything quantitative. There are two points I want to make to counter some of the arguments people have brought up. First, even though Chinese high schoolers are "better" at math and there are certainly many gifted kids, it does not necessarily mean that they are better at abstract thinking and will excel at higher levels. On the other hand, some of the most talented people I know did not have super impressive test scores. They are insatiably curious and think from first principles. Second, if you look at the top researchers today, you'll find their strength comes from combining knowledge from different disciplines, e.g. computer science and neuroscience. The education system in China pretty much hones students in a single dimension, pushing them into a narrow corner. Also, the most important thing in research is not just understanding what has been done. It is thinking critically and challenging authority. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this really goes against the Chinese regime and Chinese culture to a large extent. I wouldn't be surprised by a large number of future Chinese AI "engineers" who can quickly replicate the latest research. But I think China has a long way to go in order to create an environment that allows students to freely explore and think before a real AI breakthrough.

186 points by eaxitect 9y ago

idibidiart 9y ago

Thb, most of the interesting work I've seen has come out of Silicon Valley. What breakthroughs have come from China?

kobeya 9y ago
Baidu & Deep Speech? That was actually developed in Silicon Valley though, as that's where Baidu's AI lab is.
ericflo 9y ago
Off the top of my head, didn't ResNet come out of MSRA?
- mljoe 9y ago
  Yes. ResNet was CVPR paper of the year last year. This year DenseNet has a first author from Tsinghua University (Dr. Zhuang Liu). I feel like the importance of China in machine learning is very hard to dispute these days. At least they are open about it, which is good for scientific development worldwide.
kercker 9y ago
Can you give some examples of these interesting work?
- idibidiart 9y ago
  The one posted yesterday from OpenAI. Hierarchical learning. Also, DeepMind's relational NN. I can dig up others from memor after caffiene. DeepMind is at Google which is a Silicon Valley co. True about Canada, but salaries in Canada do not support retention of talent, so most end up in SV in the long run or get acquired by SV companies.
  - paulfitz 9y ago
    (DeepMind is part of the Alphabet group, true, but is based in London, with some research people in Canada and some applied people in California.)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
abhinavkulkarni 9y ago
Most 'breakthroughs' in AI have come from Canada, not Silicon Valley.
- chronicy292 9y ago
  Then why do all the AI folks and startups in Toronto et al. dream of moving to silicon valley with the outrageous rent and home prices?
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  Canada is definitely underappreciated, but you might be overstating it a bit... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2017/10/04/chicago-collaborative-sets-sights-on-restoring-a-nearly-vacant-town/#300bcb3a55b4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2017/10/04/chicag...
mitchdoogle 9y ago
The article says that China is investing heavily in AI now, in reaction to the breakthroughs happening elsewhere. It suggests that breakthroughs over the next decade will be coming from China.
exelius 9y ago
Much of the interesting work is done by Chinese nationals, many of whom feel the startup field in the US is slanted towards white people, so they go back to China and take their knowledge with them. US research institutes are top-notch, but our casual racism and xenophobia are killing us. Not that the Chinese aren't also racist and xenophobic, but the pendulum of power is definitely swinging back across the Pacific.
- idibidiart 9y ago
  That is a good point but China is a dictatorship and a censoring anti-democracy regime. I can't imagine putting up with that either.
  - exelius 9y ago
    Chinese culture values harmony and stability over individualism and total freedom. The actions of the individual glorify the group; and they view "dictators" as more of a "father-like figurehead". They look at the US and see the problems we have (crime, gun control, health care, etc) and can point to their own society and say "well, we solved all of those so our system is better." Many young Chinese who were educated in the US feel this way, so it's not a generational thing. This is a cultural tradition stretching back many thousands of years. The world view of a person from China is very different than that of an American. Also, consider that an AI researcher returning to China is likely going to be in the top 1% of society. Dictatorial societies tend to be pretty good for the people at the top. The Chinese startup market is hotter than the US at this point too; and it's basically restricted to people born in a handful of Chinese cities. The Chinese government intentionally stacks the deck to get them to return.
    - it_learnses 9y ago
      Understandable for Chinese nationals to go back. But for someone like Ng, who was born and educated here, it seems very irresponsible.
      - 9y ago
coldtea 9y ago
>Thb, most of the interesting work I've seen has come out of Silicon Valley. Like, social websites and apps? >What breakthroughs have come from China? Like tons of actual innovations in hardware, screens, storage, materials science, manufacturing methods, robotics, biology, and other fields?
idibidiart 9y ago
Still with all these hurt feelings etc, what breakthrough work has come of out of China?
rawnlq 9y ago
Due to the language barrier, there is a lot of interesting work that we will never "see". For example I was randomly looking through text recognition competition results and found out Tencent has an AI lab that took first place: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=1&com=evaluation&task=4 http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=1&com=evaluation&task=4. But I was unable to find any information about them. They have github repos with thousands of stars but the community is entirely in chinese: https://github.com/Tencent/ncnn/issues https://github.com/Tencent/ncnn/issues
- idibidiart 9y ago
  I believe TenCent AI Lab is based in Silicon Valley.
  - kercker 9y ago
    According to its recruit page (http://ai.tencent.com/ailab/recruit.html http://ai.tencent.com/ailab/recruit.html), they have researchers in US and Shenzhen, China.

shadowmint 9y ago

Extremely relevant quote from the talented Mr Ng: > “When the Chinese government announces a plan like this, it has significant implications for the country and the economy,” says Andrew Ng, a prominent AI expert who previously oversaw AI technology and strategy at China’s biggest online search company, Baidu. “It’s a very strong signal to everyone that things will happen.” ie. There is going to be a tonne of money poured into this. Will it make a difference, tangibly to economic transformation? Who knows... ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this. More interesting: will it be as transformative as everyone is hoping?

monkmartinez 9y ago
> ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this. What are they currently leading?
- pavanred 9y ago
  I would guess manufacturing
- sniperjzp 9y ago
  Internet related area, like payment service, on demand market, cloud computing, etc.
  - elefanten 9y ago
    Scale of deployment is not technology leadership
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      It seems we need to agree on a definition of "technology leadership" before discussing it further - otherwise it's too easy to keep moving the goalpost.

it_learnses 9y ago

Scientists like Ng ought to consider the repercussions of their actions when they decide to aid Chinese companies, and by extension, the Chinese govt with cutting edge research. They are basically collaborating with the enemy that stands against pretty much everything that the west granted them (scientists like Ng who were born here and given the opportunities).

dforrestwilson 9y ago
? What exactly did the west grant them? They're catching up after decades of communism, and creeping towards becoming a dictatorship for Xi. That will likely negatively impact their growth far more than the actions (or inactions) of the West.
- it_learnses 9y ago
  Ng was born and educated in the west. That's the point I'm making.
  - caio1982 9y ago
    ...and that’s an irrelevant point.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  It’s not that China’s economic growth is bad for the west (I think that’s good on its own terms); it’s that tyranny is bad for us all. Helping to entrench it is very short-sighted. There has never been a modern AI-assisted tyranny before, for one thing, and we don’t know how stable that might become. It’s reckless to expect it to just fall apart like the Soviet Union, especially since the rulers consciously learned from that history.
denzil_correa 9y ago
Does this mean we should all stop using Chinese products like most of the phones made in the USA?

nopinsight 9y ago

Key competitive advantages of China are their strength in quantitative skills, a huge population, and the hard working and competitive culture of the populace. An objective measure is PISA results [1]. When comparing with even the best performing US state, Massachusetts, China has many more top performers in Math, as a proportion of population [2]. (In 2015 only four provinces of China participated, but their combined population was 230 million vs Massachusetts's 6.8 million. The math result of Shanghai (24 million pop.) alone would show an even larger gap.) Since PISA results are scaled such that OECD country's mean is 500 and standard deviation is 100, China's 531 math score implies country mean at 0.3 SD above PISA mean, and US' math score at 470 implies 0.3 SD below mean. If people capable of doing AI research or proper AI implementation need to have math skills at, say, 2 SD above PISA mean, then there will be a tremendous difference in proportion between two populations with 0.6 SD difference. My back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming above figures, is the proportion will be about five times as large. But China has more than 4 times the population of the US, so the difference in potential numbers of AI-capable natives could be around 20 times. (Since other provinces may drag down China's mean, it could be a bit less. An opposite influence is increasing wealth and thus more resources devoted to education, both by parents and the state. We'll see soon since China as a whole will participate in PISA 2018.) Moreover, the Chinese government is pushing AI and programming education into their education system, starting from the primary level [3]. The distinct advantage of the US is that it is the magnet for top talents and ambitious people from all over the world, including the Chinese, so it might continue to lead for a while. However, if the US becomes inhospitable to talents or potential talents, it is clear that China with its quality and quantity of human resources will soon take the lead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St... [2] http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/usa1?lg=en http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/usa1?lg=en [3] http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0828/c90000-9261282.html http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0828/c90000-9261282.html

nopinsight 9y ago
Also, my previous comment in a thread on China's progress in quantum computing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15535241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15535241 China's advances in AI are impressive as well. A ranking based on publications at top conferences from 2012 to present (2017) has both Beijing and Tsinghua University in the world's top 5. http://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp http://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp (The starting year in the link needs to be changed to 2012.) Many of the top researchers in US academia are mainland Chinese. I wonder if they will be enticed back home when the Chinese government has managed to reduce the pollution in their major cities down to healthy levels. It appears that the salary for top people there, especially those with experience at major Western institutions, is comparable to those in the US in nominal terms, and the research funding is easier to get.

dis-sys 9y ago

I was reading the USNews CS ranking yesterday, got really surprised that apparently some Chinese universities are now considered as the best in CS. top 20 list: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/search?region=&subject=computer-science&name= https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/se... https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science?page=2 https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/co...

killjoywashere 9y ago
Keep in mind they also have some pretty significant plagarism and pay-to-publish problems.
- yorison 9y ago
  Keep in mind it's the lower end schools that have the plagarism and pay-to-publish problems. The top schools never had this problem.
tooltalk 9y ago
Well, it's interesting to see that the USNews ranks Harvard ahead of UCBerkeley. Back when I used to work at a quant shop in NYC, Harvard wasn't even considered for hiring -- they only recruited from MIT, CMU, UIUC, Berkeley, Stanford and UToronto. Also, not surprisingly, most quants were Chinese.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  Trust your own expertise. I can’t find the paper where I got this from but if you rank CS departments by where professors got their doctorates and where they end up teaching the basically equal top four were Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. Which four would round out the world Top 10? Georgia Tech? Aren’t a ton of quants French as well?
randcraw 9y ago
Caveat: the US News rankings are famously cooked and unreliable. You'd expect that from a cash cow that singularly keeps the US News brand alive, as well as the deliberate efforts of universities to drive up their brand's rank. According to Wiki, three more independent and open source of rankings are the Acad. Ranking of World Univs, Times Higher Education, and Quaccquarelli Symonds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_ranking... The Chronicle of Higher Education is also a well-regarded rater, esp. in assessment of research. http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-World-University-Rankings/141971 http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-World-University-Rankin...

indescions_2017 9y ago

Hmmm. MIT Tech Review now behind cognito-only browser shield? Is that new? What's really interesting is the continued trend of cashless WeChat Pay adoption in China versus say trickling Digital Payments penetration here in USA. I actually just had to order a new replacement set of paper checks. And its simply due to the fact that so many small merchants cite higher credit card fees as a reason for preferring cash or checks for payments. Coupled with AI, I think this preference for instant, fee-less digital payments will translate into convenience stores without cashiers. Auto repair shops where you just drop off your faulty electric vehicle and hop into a loaner without actually interacting with a customer service agent. And thousands of other technology-mediated retail experiences. It's Asian consumer adoption and demand driving AI solutions from the bottom up. And that makes it much more likely to result in first mover advantage and the potential for game-changing breakthroughs.

rcpt 9y ago
One advantage China has in payments is the lack of incumbent credit corporations. In the United States credit cards were widely deployed and trusted decades ago while in China tech companies have an open playing field where real innovation can happen fast.
- randcraw 9y ago
  That's a competitive advantage when it arises against competitors that you're willing to destroy. But in the years ahead, China's major competition will arise increasingly within China. That portends a lot of internal disruption of the status quo which the government is unlikely to anticipate (like the ongoing explosion of e-commerce there and its immeasurable disruption of the day-to-day lives of established retailers). Despite China's outward enthusiasm for advancement, high speed change promises to destabilize the totalitarian gov't, which suggests that a bumpy ride lies ahead.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
I haven’t used a personal check states side in many many years; I don’t even bother ordering them anymore going for a cashiers check on the rare case I need a check for something. And when was the last time you went to an ATM in the states, maybe once every 6 months? In contrast, up until a few years ago, I had to bring a backpack full of 100 RMB notes to pay my rent every 3 months. China has made a transition for sure, but don’t forget the local problems they were solving (poor penetration of UnionPay, poor online payment facilities). And online retail and a godsend when you consider the horrible state owned department store system and anemic brick and mortar retail clones they replaced. Chinese companies will probably change the game in china, it as long as they are focused and limited to local problems, I don’t see how it will effect the west very much.

bluetwo 9y ago

Whenever I read articles like this I'm really looking for the million dollar idea. Solving Go is good. Solving Poker is better. Best would be solving a high-value business problem for which a solution using AI can be developed.

NHQ 9y ago
Care to hazard some examples of the latter?
- skriticos2 9y ago
  I can think of two: supply chain management (producing stuff more effectively) and market trend analysis (know what people will buy tomorrow - to build it when it's needed). The first involves a lot of people networking and dealing with the messy bits (hard) while the later is looking into the crystal ball with help of some data to extrapolate likely outcomes (somewhat hard). There is also logistics (again tons of messy bits), customer service (interacting with people), transportation (now this is probably the lowest hanging fruit - which is why everyone and their dog is chasing it). Just of the top of my hat.. of course there is R&D (hard), design (hard), bureaucracy (bookkeeping, process management, etc. - easy in theory, not so much in practice) -- well, and all the other things that we humans do during a day of business. We could also involve politics, government and philosophy - but that would probably be stretching it. ps. I also suck at counting, so maybe that too.
  - bluetwo 9y ago
    I don't think politics and government are a stretch. In fact that's the direction I'm considering. I don't think transportation is very easy, it's just that the value is high and honestly, there is this trillion dollar asset (the nation's roadways) that companies are going to be able to leverage for a very low cost, which makes it appealing.
  - NHQ 9y ago
    Thanks, I like crystal ball ideas.

Dowwie 9y ago

there was a time when the U.S. had a leader who declared a bipartisan mission to do something great and worthy of the effort and the U.S. accomplished that mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuW4oGKzVKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuW4oGKzVKc -- fast forward to ~7:40minutes for most relevant AI is the new moon shot of our time but its rally cries are emanating by leaders of U.S corporations for the maximization of profit of their shareholders where as in China they are emanating by the leaders of the state for reasons far exceeding short-term economic gains

AElsinore77 9y ago

Another key trend to consider - China's labor costs are growing up to 2x per year: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-... China's push for AI is a recognition that the loss of one advantage (cheap human labor) could be replaced by another (cheap machine labor).

rahimnathwani 9y ago
They're not growing 2x every year. Even the article you linked says "“China’s labor costs are increasing, or doubling, every few years,”" In any case, the advantage of cheap human labour has already been replaced by what you call 'cheap machine labour'. China has been able to dominate manufacturing in large part by giving companies access to cheap capital, which allows them to invest in machines. Silicon chips aren't made by hand. PCBs aren't soldered by hand.

LostInTheWoods2 9y ago

The plan calls for homegrown AI to match that developed in the West within three years, for China’s researchers to be making “major breakthroughs” by 2025, and for Chinese AI to be the envy of the world by 2030. Really? Major breakthroughs can be mandated by a centralized government? Back in the 80s-90s, Americans were convinced that Japan was going to eat its lunch. It gives me some hope in knowing that we still suffer from this complex.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
US government basically mandated the Moon landings, and they happened within 12 years from Sputnik. So I'd say yes, sometimes a government can just mandate progress.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Dont DARPA and other US gov research groups have a pretty long track record of successful projects? Computers, nukes, ICs, space, internet, self-driving cars, etc. They seem to be some of the most well used research money -- precisely the government mandating progress.
  - gph 9y ago
    True, but a lot of those were more specific in their end goals. What exactly is China going for here? Sounds like just general AI research and advancement. That's not a bad thing, but I think it'll probably end up more like the Human Genome Project. We'll get some great fundamental science and advancement out of it, but it's probably going to lead to more open-ended questions instead of the world-changing end results that get hyped at the beginning.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > Dont DARPA and other US gov research groups have a pretty long track record of successful projects? And many failures too. You can't just buy whatever innovation you want with money; if that were true we wouldn't still have energy problems and powerlines for distributing it.

strin 9y ago

Another competitive advantage of China is data. China has 1.4B population, and nearly everyone in the country owns a mobile phone. This will contribute data 3-4 times larger than US. Considering second-order interactions (network effect), the data could be an order of magnitude larger. Chinese citizen also seems less concerned about their privacy. I've talked to one of the largest chat platforms in China, and they seems very open to share their conversation datasets with third-parties for dialogue research. In high-value verticals like healthcare, there is also less regulation compared to U.S. For example, it's easy to start a AI + radiology company in China and have access to hospital patient data, without going through tedious approval process.

eighthnate 9y ago
Excellent point. But you have to factor in american companies international reach. Chinese companies dominate china and that is extremely lucrative, but american tech companies dominate europe and the americas and the rest of the world. Europe and at americas combined have a larger population than china and a geographical landmass 3X larger than china. The real question is why europe ( 800 million people ) and latin america ceded their tech industry and data to the US. If data is the oil of the 21st century, then the US, china and india are going to rule the nest. Europe has no future and neither does south america. I under why china, russia, etc had protected their own internal industries to compete against FB, GOOGL, TWTR, AMZN, etc. I just don't understand why europe, south america, etc haven't. All europe/south america have/had to do is invest a few billion to capture a few trillion in wealth. Instead, they've ceded all that wealth to predominately american tech companies. It's very strange when you think about it.
- nrhk 9y ago
  Is it though, your talking about a federation of democratic and culturally different nations to two locked down regimes with homogeneous societies. I don't think Europe could do what China and Russia did even if they tried.
  - taobility 9y ago

potbelly83 9y ago

What I never understood, if China is so great, why then do large parts of their upper middle class/upper class buy property in foreign countries and send their kids to school their? It's not as if the American upper class are purchasing houses in Beijing for their kids.

beisner 9y ago
The United States was once seen as uncultured, unrefined, and frankly quite weak by most of Western Europe until the late 1800's. And in many respects it was. Now the US is the richest country in the world, and is where wealthy non-Americans send their children and make land investments. My point is that trajectory is more relevant to these discussions than current state of affairs. The quality of life of the average Chinese citizen (and more so the upper-middle class Chinese citizen) has increased DRAMATICALLY in the last 40 years. So when people talk about China's potential, they aren't talking about the situation in the next 5 or 10 years. They're talking about who is going exert massive international influence in the next 50 years. So you're right, most westerners aren't buying speculative property in Beijing (despite the fact that housing in central Beijing is nearly as expensive as New York City), but I'd wager there's a good chance of that changing in the next 50 years.
- potbelly83 9y ago
  interesting perspective, thanks
- indemnity 9y ago
  I think a missing piece of the puzzle is: It’s not clear to me that my property rights would be respected, should I be able to buy property in China (which, as a foreigner, I can’t do anyway, the government only leases it to you at best). Western countries have a much better record in this regard.
  - beisner 9y ago
    While you’re technically correct about the government leasing property, in practice buying the rights to land for residential use is in practice effectively the same as buying the land. There are a lot of things like that in China, where the system is nominally socialist, but in practice things are just as capitalistic (if not more so) as they are in western countries.

rdrey 9y ago

Sorry, my questions might reflect that I don't know much about China / Chinese culture. I'm curious about compensation. Can Chinese AI researchers earn equally well in China as abroad? Or are they going to suffer from brain drain eventually? How does the Communist Party / society deal with large pay gaps? Are Chinese companies with AI departments looking for international talent that's not at the uppermost level?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Yes. China pays well, not just for AI researchers, but specialized tech talent in general. They attract workers from Taiwan, Korea, Japan for the better paycheck accordingly, where tech workers aren’t valued as much.

deleted 9y ago

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YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

I'm getting a bit of a flashback to the Japanese Fifth Gneeration Computing project (I wasn't around back then; I've read about it though). Then, too, an East Asian country (Japan) known for excellence in one field (manufacturing) initiated a state-funded research project into a promising technology (AI). Then, too, the West reacted with alarm, fearing the Asians would leave them in the dust. Then, too, the project was about AI. Except, back then, it didn't go too well [1]. But, perhaps this is just pattern matching failure on my part and nothing is even remotely the same today. ____________________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
I wonder if the late 80s are repeating themselves in more ways than one. Huge domestic asset bubble waiting to pop including massive speculation in foreign real estate, and perhaps even a 3rd AI winter? It doesn’t have to happen the same way, of course.
whb07 9y ago
This should be the top post. Marc Andreesen commented back when he was in college he was freaking about the Japanese taking over tech and how he was worried he didn’t know Japanese.
nopinsight 9y ago
The current crop of AIs is already starting to make a big impact in commercial and other spheres. All of the major tech giants in the US and China are using AI in their offerings and behind the scenes. There are substantial differences between the two eras.

killjoywashere 9y ago

Pro tip for folks looking to take a job with a Chinese company: this will prevent you from jumping to some jobs in the US. The defense sector will want you to be not employed by the Chinese for at least a year before letting you work on defense-related jobs (yes, they will audit your employer).

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Well, if you marry a Chinese, you can also kiss your security clearance goodbye. I don’t think it matters to most of outside the DC/Virginia area.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  There's a fair amount of DoD contract work being done all over the country.

noetic_techy 9y ago

Has China produced a single major AI breakthrough with all these cited papers? Just because they have a lot of papers written doesn't mean anything. Quality vs Quantity. You can take technology developed by others and copy it all you want, and assign all your grad students to write something publishable about it, but unless you innovate in it, I wouldn't say you are a world leader. At best you may see novel applications of AI tasking come out of China, and people will falsely equate this with "China is beating us at AI." I still think the General AI breakthrough will come from Western researchers out of the box thinking.

mazerackham 9y ago
ya, i mean, how could anyone think that those robots from China can think outside of the box right? /sarcasm
AlexCoventry 9y ago
Yes, lots. StackGAN comes to mind.

dataronin 9y ago

I am a Chinese born AI researcher and I've had most of my higher education in the US. The funny thing is that when I was a high schooler in China, I was not particularly good at math and basically hated anything quantitative. There are two points I want to make to counter some of the arguments people have brought up. First, even though Chinese high schoolers are "better" at math and there are certainly many gifted kids, it does not necessarily mean that they are better at abstract thinking and will excel at higher levels. On the other hand, some of the most talented people I know did not have super impressive test scores. They are insatiably curious and think from first principles. Second, if you look at the top researchers today, you'll find their strength comes from combining knowledge from different disciplines, e.g. computer science and neuroscience. The education system in China pretty much hones students in a single dimension, pushing them into a narrow corner. Also, the most important thing in research is not just understanding what has been done. It is thinking critically and challenging authority. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this really goes against the Chinese regime and Chinese culture to a large extent. I wouldn't be surprised by a large number of future Chinese AI "engineers" who can quickly replicate the latest research. But I think China has a long way to go in order to create an environment that allows students to freely explore and think before a real AI breakthrough.