Digital economy and AI high on the minds of China's tech leaders

Chinese tech leaders articulated their vision for the post-internet future at the World Internet Conference held this past week, with artificial intelligence, complete digitisation of the economy and a call for more basic science being among the topics of discussion – though it was mostly a local affair with the absence of high profile US tech company representatives amid the ongoing US-China trade war. "Artificial intelligence and the internet represent two different eras," said Baidu CEO Robin Li Yanhong on Thursday. "We will step into the AI era in the coming three to five decades while the previous 20 years belonged to internet." Baidu, which operates China's largest internet search engine, is a so-called AI national champion with its efforts in the field endorsed by the central government. It was also the first Chinese company to join an international AI ethics group set up last month, alongside members such as Apple and Alphabet's Google.