China's massive investment in artificial intelligence has an insidious downside

Some firms in China now use artificial intelligence–powered facial recognition programs to confirm identities. BEIJING--In a gleaming high-rise here in northern Beijing's Haidian district, two hardware jocks in their 20s are testing new computer chips that might someday make smartphones, robots, and autonomous vehicles truly intelligent. The onlooker, Chen Yunji, a 34-year-old computer scientist and founding technical adviser of Cambricon Technologies here, explains that traditional processors, designed decades before the recent tsunami of artificial intelligence (AI) research, "are slow and energy inefficient" at processing the reams of data required for AI. "Even if you have a very good algorithm or application," he says, its usefulness in everyday life is limited if you can't run it on your phone, car, or appliance. "Our goal is to change all lives."