Why China’s AI push is worrying

IMAGINE the perfect environment for developing artificial intelligence (AI). The ingredients would include masses of processing power, lots of computer-science boffins, a torrent of capital—and abundant data with which to train machines to recognise and respond to patterns. That environment might sound like a fair description of America, the current leader in the field. But in some respects it is truer still of China.The country is rapidly building up its cloud-computing capacity. For sheer volume of research on AI, if not quality, Chinese academics surpass their American peers; AI-related patent submissions in China almost tripled between 2010 and 2014 compared with the previous five years. Chinese startups are attracting billions in venture capital. Above all, China has over 700m smartphone users, more than any other country. They are consuming digital services, using voice assistants, paying for stuff with a wave of their phones—and all the while generating vast quantities of data. That gives local firms such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent the opportunity to concoct best-in-class AI systems for everything from facial recognition to messaging bots. The government in Beijing is convinced of the potential. On July 20th it outlined a development strategy designed to make China the world’s leading AI power by 2030.