Time to put AI knowledge to use

Google has never been away from news. But this time it is hogging the limelight because its artificial intelligence-powered AlphaGo has defeated South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol 4:1 in a five-match series. AlphaGo's victory has also prompted some observers to say Google is far ahead of Chinese technology companies in terms of AI research. Such a conclusion, however, does not reflect reality.

In terms of pure theoretical research in AI, China hardly lags behind the United States or any other country. Actually, it is hard to say which country is the leader because researchers across the world are cooperating rather than competing with each other. When a team achieves a technological breakthrough, it prefers to publish it in academic journals, which not just helps protect its intellectual rights but also allows researchers in other countries to share the vital information.

If we insist on comparing China and the US, there is hardly any gap between them because Chinese researchers have published almost as many papers as their US counterparts. At the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Beijing in July 2015, chairperson Yang Qiang, who is also head of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, said more papers were received and accepted from researchers in China than from any other country. That is the best footnote on AI researchers in China.