new AI platform, called PAI 2.0, which the
company said will “allow businesses without
an AI background to make practical use of
Alibaba Cloud’s ET programmes.”
Besides the BAT, other Chinese tech com-
panies have also substantially increased their
investment in AI. Lenovo, for example,
opened its first AI lab in March. According
to CEO Yang Yuanqing, the company will
invest US$1.2 billion, or over 20 percent of
its total R&D development spending, in the
research and development of artificial intel-
ligence, big data and Internet of Things (IoT)
technology in the next four years.
In the meantime, the AI sector has become
increasingly attractive to investors. According
to a report released by Wuzhen Institute, a
domestic think tank, the financing received
by artificial intelligence companies between
2012 and June 2016 reached US$2.6 bil-
lion. Although the figure lags far behind the
financing received by American AI firms at
US$17.9 billion, it places China well-ahead
of other countries, as Britain trails in third
place with financing of US$800 million. In
terms of AI-related patents, although the US
still leads the world with a total of 26,891 pat-
ents ahead of China and Japan, which have a
total of 15,745 and 14,604 patents, China
has surpassed the US in terms of the number
of patents newly obtained since 2012.
According to another report released by
iiMedia Research, an industry consulting
company, the size of China’s AI industry in-
creased by 43.3 percent in 2016 and is pro-
jected to increase by 51.2 percent in 2017.Government Support
While AI technologies have attracted a
large volume of investment from the private
sector, the industry has also caught the atten-
tion of the Chinese government. In March
2016, the same month Alpha Go defeated
Lee, China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–20)called for breakthroughs in artificial intel-
ligence. In May, the National Development
and Reform Commission (NDRC) released
a three-year action plan on “Internet Plus and
AI.”
2016 also saw closer cooperation between
local government and AI firms in pushing
forward the application of AI technologies
in various sub-disciplines, particularly in
Zhejiang, China’s prosperous coastal prov-
ince, where Alibaba Group’s headquarters are
based.
For example, last September, the Zheji-
ang government adopted Alibaba’s speech
recognition technologies in all of its 105
courts. Then in November, Alibaba and the
municipal government of Hangzhou, capital
of Zhejiang Province, launched the initiative
“Hangzhou City Brain,” as part of Alibaba’s
Smart City project. By applying the com-
pany’s big data analytics capabilities and its
video and image recognition technologies, aPhoto by cfpSource: Global Artificial Intelligence Development
Report 2016, Wuzhen InstituteNew AI companies in China