China unique and necessary for EU's AI strategy, and vice versa

There is a constant flow of news cheering up the digital industry in China. The latest amazing piece of news comes from Tianjin, which hosted the second World Intelligent Congress. The city announced on May 16 that it would establish a 100 billion yuan ($15.68 billion) fund to boost the artificial intelligence (AI) and smart industry.

Tianjin is not alone in making such efforts to push China to realize its goal of becoming a world leader in AI by 2030. According to media reports, policymakers of major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen have also announced their own measures to promote or facilitate the AI industry, joined by China's banking sector, technology giants, and numerous small and medium-sized enterprises.

Competing with the United States, the first country to have implemented a comprehensive AI research and development strategic plan in May 2016, China set a development plan for new generation AI as its strategy in July last year. By comparison, Europe has been slow to act. Only last month, the European Commission outlined its European Union-wide strategic plan to boost AI.