China is overtaking US in artificial intelligence: researchers

China is poised to overtake the United States in artificial intelligence with a surge in academic research on the key technology, an analysis published Wednesday showed. The analysis by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence showed China has already surpassed the US in published papers on AI--although many of these were considered "medium-quality" or "low-quality." But the researchers said China is likely to top the US in the most-cited 50 percent of papers this year, the most-cited 10 percent of papers next year, and in the top one percent by 2025. The findings highlight concerns in Washington and Silicon Valley that China is racing ahead of the US in key areas of technology such as autonomous vehicles, virtual reality and fifth-generation wireless networks. Allen Institute researchers Field Cady and Oren Etzioni said the surge in AI investment in China began more than a decade ago, well before the 2017 announcement by Beijing that it planned to become the world leader in the sector by 2030.