China sets out road map to lead world in artificial intelligence by 2030

The ambitious plan will be an economic bonanza for the country's technology firms, as the area defined as core AI is expected to be valued at 150 billion yuan by 2020, while AI-related fields are valued at 1 trillion yuan, according to the government's forecast. By 2025, those values will exceed 400 billion yuan and 5 trillion yuan (US$739 billion) respectively. Up to 26 per cent of China's gross domestic products (GDP) could be generated by AI-related industries by 2030, making the country the world's biggest winner from investing in the field, according to a report last month by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Chinese internet companies led by Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu and Tencent Holdings have been investing heavily in AI applications.