This week we saw a huge milestone with China beating Amazon to successfully establish fully commercialized drone delivery, a new type of online to offline buying experience combining China's Spotify with retail, and artificial intelligence (AI) predicting which roads will flood in advance in order to reduce traffic congestion. China is pushing the boundaries of technological advancement faster than any country on Earth and This Week In China Tech is the place to stay on top of the news that you won't find in the Western media. Aerial photo taken on May 10, 2018 shows a drone carried with parcels, taking off from a branch post office in Weicheng Township, Qingzhen City of southwest China's Guizhou Province. You probably remember how Amazon captured the consumer imagination when they announced their concept for delivery drones at the end of 2016, but they never really materialized. Chinese retailers have now delivered fully operational drone delivery systems, confirming 17 authorized routes last week (article in Chinese).

The unusually strongly worded report released Monday urges "top-to-bottom" changes in how the Federal Aviation Administration assesses and manages risks from drones. The report, which was requested by Congress, also criticizes the agency for extending its traditional focus on "near-zero tolerance for risk" involving airliners and applying it to cover small drones flying at low altitudes away from airports. Instead, the report concludes, the agency should peg drone safety to more-comparable hazards confronting people on the ground such as those posed by small private-plane crashes or pedestrian-vehicle accidents. Such minimal but persistent levels of risk already are accepted by the public,according to the report. A fundamental issue is "what are we going to compare [drone] safety to?" said consultant George Ligler, who served as chairman of the committee that drafted the document.

Verity Studios, which took precision drone swarm technology from ETH Zurich and turned it into a spectacular live event display system, has announced a round of Series A funding totaling US $18 million from Fontinalis Partners, Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Kitty Hawk. This is a lot of money for a company that most people may not know exists even if they view a Verity-powered drone show firsthand, but that's part of what makes Verity special: Everything they do is reliable, seamless, and safe, leading to experiences that have a truly mesmerizing effect. The reason we follow companies like Verity so closely, and the reason why we're happy when they get funded, is because they've managed to transition some fairly amazing robotics research into a successful business, which is a very difficult thing to do. The kinds of things that make Verity special come from over a decade of work at the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, led by Professor Raffaello D'Andrea, a lot of which we've covered in the past. For example, Verity's drones are fully redundant, able to recover from "a failed battery, a failed motor, a failed connector, a failed propeller, a failed sensor, or a failure of any other component ... through the duplication of critical components and the use of proprietary algorithms, which enable safe emergency responses to component failures."

South African construction sites may experience a drone hovering above them. Gauteng province's department of infrastructure development has launched a fleet of drones that'll be used to monitor building projects including those in and around Johannesburg. "It is possible for the public sector to be efficient and to be productive in what we do," says Jacob Mamabolo, Head of Provincial Department. The drones would monitor the quality of work and also ensure that the projects stick to their schedules. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are just the latest effort by Mamabolo to make his department more tech-savvy and to'leap frog' with opportunities from the'fourth industrial revolution'.

Drones have become the ultimate option for monitoring, surveying and inspection. Enel, the multinational energy company has implemented this strategy and selected Percepto's Sparrow system to monitor the Torrevaldaliga Nord power plant in Italy. The Sparrow's AI and computer vision technology will allow it to operate as independently as possible, and the collected aerial footage, photography is transmitted to Enel in real-time. "While drones are touted as the technology of the future, the ability to act autonomously unlocks their true potential, enabling them to act as a responsible, independent and smart team member that provides not only a bird's eye view of facilities, but real, actionable insights," said Percepto CEO, Dor Abuhasira. The goal is to introduce cost-effective and practical drone support to a business model attempting to continuously refine itself.

Google is committing to not using artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance after employees protested the company's involvement in Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program that uses artificial intelligence to analyse drone footage. However, Google says it will continue to work with the United States military on cybersecurity, search and rescue, and other non-offensive projects. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the change in a set of AI principles released today. The principles are intended to govern Google's use of artificial intelligence and are a response to employee pressure on the company to create guidelines for its use of AI. Employees at the company have spent months protesting Google's involvement in Project Maven, sending a letter to Pichai demanding that Google terminate its contract with the Department of Defense.

In Ensenada, a Mexican city about two hours south of Tijuana, a new crime fighter has taken to the skies. And over a few months on patrol, it's had quite the impact. The city's police department claims the solitary DJI Inspire 1 Quadcopter led to more than 500 arrests and a 10 percent drop in overall crime rates, with a 30 percent drop in home robberies. It's the latest example of drones slowly finding their place in civilian life, like soldiers returning from war, seeking to apply their skills to life in a country not entirely comfortable with what they were up to overseas. Unmanned aerial vehicles may have gotten their start with the military, flying recon missions in Vietnam and dropping bombs over Afghanistan.

The world is a computer, filled with an incredible amount of data. By 2020, the average person will generate 1.5GB of data a day, a smart home 50GB and a smart city, a whopping 250 petabytes of data per day. This data presents an enormous opportunity for developers -- giving them a seat of power, while also giving them tremendous responsibility. That's why this morning at Build, we don't take our jobs lightly in helping to equip these developers with the tools and guidance to change the world. On stage in Seattle, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is describing this new world view, fueled by AI that can power better health care, relieve challenges around basic human needs and create a society that's more inclusive and accessible.

It is a terrifying vision of the future - a robot police officer with dark eyes and no discernible mouth that can identify criminals and collect evidence. The robocop, complete with police hat to give it that eerie uncanny valley feel, was shown off outside the world's tallest tower, Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, last June. But since then what has it done? And is Dubai's love affair with robotics any more than just PR for a country desperate to be at the cutting edge of technology? PAL Robotics, the company behind the robot, threw some light on its duties, which seemed more tourist guide than police officer.

Google has promised not to use AI for weapons, following protests over its partnership with the US military. A decision to provide machine-learning tools to analyse drone footage caused some employees to resign. Google told employees last week it would not renew its contract with the US Department of Defense when it expires next year. It has now said it will not use AI for technology that causes injury to people. The new guidelines for AI use were outlined in a blog post from chief executive Sundar Pichai. When Google revealed that it had signed a contract to share its AI technology with the Pentagon, a number of employees resigned and thousands of others signed a protest petition.