China has recently announced their long-term goal to become #1 in A.I. by 2030. They plan to grow their A.I. industry to over $22 billion by 2020, $59 billion by 2025 and $150 billion by 2030. They did this same type of long-term strategic planning for robotics – to make it an in-country industry and to transform the country from a low-cost labor source to a high-tech manufacturing resource, and it's working. With this major strategic long-term push into A.I., China is looking to rival U.S. market leaders such as Alphabet/Google, Apple, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft. China is keen not to be left behind in a technology that is increasingly pivotal -- from online commerce to self-driving vehicles, energy, and consumer products.

Google has introduced a'Google Developers Launchpad Studio' to empower start-ups globally, including from India, which are working in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). It will provide tailored technical, product and investment support to the startups, all in one place, Google said on Thursday. From working with dynamic startups such as teams applying AI technology to solving transportation problems in Israel, improving tele-medicine in Brazil and optimising online retail in India, Google has learnt that these startups require specialised services to help them scale. "Whether you're a 3-person team or an established post-Series B startup applying AI/ML to your product offering, we want to start connecting with you. Applications to join Launchpad Studio are now open," posted Roy Glasberg, Global Lead, Google Developers Launchpad.

Amazon employs 45,000 robots, but they all have something missing: hands. Squat wheeled machines carry boxes around in more than 20 of the company's cavernous fulfillment centers across the globe. But it falls exclusively to humans to do things like pulling items from shelves or placing them into those brown boxes that bring garbage bags and pens and books to our homes. Robots able to help with so-called picking tasks would boost Amazon's efficiency--and make it much less reliant on human workers. It's why the company has invited a motley crew of mechanical arms, grippers, suction cups--and their human handlers--to Nagoya, Japan, this week to show off their manipulation skills.

Rumor has it that artificial intelligence is the next big industrial application coming out of big data, after Internet of Things. Let's take a look at the market together and examine the evolution of data processing and business intelligence. The past decade has seen the rise of some great new IT technologies including cloud computing, blockchain, and big data. Among them, big data analytics has been viewed as just a "marketing thing" generating a lot of buzz. It is now becoming a standard across industries.

China aims to make the artificial intelligence industry a "new, important" driver of economic expansion by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the State Council.

South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol is seen on the screen during the Google DeepMind Challenge Match against Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea, March 9, 2016. Lee Sedol lost the first match. LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The war between tech titans has begun. Some are worried about what artificial intelligence (AI) will mean for humanity, calling for slowing down the process of building it, while others are pretty optimistic. For years, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been famous for his skeptical attitude towards AI and suggested it could be dangerous to the future of the human race.

Apple has killed the iPod Nano and Shuffle. The two iconic music players have been quietly removed from the Apple Store, signalling that they join the company's many other dead but much loved products. The line is now gradually diminishing – leaving only the iPod Touch left. That product, which is like a slimmed down iPhone without the phone, has been updated. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Despite humanity's astounding technological advances, the one thing that we've never been able to invent our way out of is our own mortality. But what if you never actually had to lose the ones you love? That's the premise of upcoming sci-fi flick Marjorie Prime, where advances in AI make the human grieving process a thing of the past. Struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband, the movie's main character, Marjorie, uses a computer program to immortalize him as a piece of AI. With Madmen's Jon Hamm playing the protagonist's hunky holographic husband, the trailer gives us a glimpse into how Marjorie's daughter struggles to come to terms with seeing an AI version of her late father.

A young boy named Dennis has just received the birthday present of his dreams. It's you -- a Japanese robot that can repeat words, although for the most part you just watch silently. That's the premise of Felix & Paul Studios' 40-minute-long VR comedic feature for Funny Or Die called Miyubi, which launches in the Oculus store today. Through events happening to a family over the course of a year, it tells a bleak story of the futility of trying to outrace obsolescence. The harrowing message hits especially hard because of how effectively the show's creators used the medium, forcing you to witness times changing around you.

On July 20, China's State Council issued the "Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" (新一代人工智能发展规划), which articulates an ambitious agenda for China to lead the world in AI. China intends to pursue a "first-mover advantage" to become the "premier global AI innovation center" by 2030. Through this new strategic framework, China will advance a "three in one" agenda in AI: tackling key problems in research and development, pursuing a range of products and applications, and cultivating an AI industry. The Chinese leadership thus seeks to seize a "major strategic opportunity" to advance its development of AI, potentially surpassing the United States in the process. This new plan, which will be implemented by a new AI Plan Promotion Office within the Ministry of Science and Technology, outlines China's objectives for advances in AI in three stages. First, by 2020, China's overall progress in technology and applications of AI should keep pace with the world's advanced level, while its AI industry becomes an important economic growth point.