Predictions for Artificial Intelligence in 2018 China's AI boom: This may al...

Predictions for Artificial Intelligence in 2018 China's AI boom: This may also be the year in which China starts looking like a major player in the field of AI. The country's tech industry is shifting away from copying Western companies, and it has identified AI and machine learning as the next big areas of innovation. China's leading search company, Baidu, has had an AI-focused lab for some time, and it is reaping the rewards in terms of improvements in technologies such as voice recognition and natural language processing, as well as a better-optimized advertising business. Other players are now scrambling to catch up. Tencent, which offers the hugely successful mobile-first messaging and networking app WeChat, opened an AI lab last year, and the company was busy recruiting talent at NIPS.