AI is the new space race. Here's what the biggest countries are doing

The United States and China currently dominate the world of artificial intelligence, but used very different approaches to get there. While the US's academic system has generated and incubated the research that made today's AI possible, China's government has pledged billions in funding and offered the technology its full-throated support. It's a space-race redux, where world superpowers battle to define generations of technology to come. Despite the duopoly narrative, other countries, including Canada and the UK, have ramped investment in the technology, announcing deals to fund private and public AI ventures. After years of a slow trickle, the first months of 2018 have seen an explosion of government-backed projects announced all over the world.