China Is Investing Heavily In Artificial Intelligence, And Could Soon Catch Up To The U.S.

HANGZHOU, CHINA - JANUARY 16: Alibaba employees watch an artificial intelligence robot named ET writing Spring Festival couplets at Alibaba's Xixi District on January 16, 2017 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. The robot named ET writes exclusive Spring Festival couplets for each Alibaba employee after using face recognition technology and speech recognition technology. The buzzword among the business and tech communities in China for the past year has been'AI', or artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, which allows software to "learn" human ways of thinking, is being incorporated into the largest e-commerce platforms, including Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, as well as into data-intensive traditional sectors. With strong government backing and concentrated research in this area, AI is poised to drive China's economy forward toward higher levels of growth.