A new list of China's top 50 artificial intelligence companies indicates that the majority of them enjoy the backing of either the government or the country's incumbent tech giants. The China AI Top 50 Ranking was unveiled by China Money Network at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China on Wednesday. According to China Money Network founder Nina Xiang the report looked at more than 1,000 companies in the Chinese Ai sector and involved the participation of a broad range of industry experts. Companies were assessed on the basis of 12 items across five areas, including tech capability, maturity of products, fund-raising, business fundamentals and future potential. The report revealed that 27 out of the top 50 Chinese AI companies were backed by either government-associated funds or the leading tech giants of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

China Money Network, a Chinese investment and technology media and data company based in Hong Kong and Beijing, today launched a campaign to compile a list of the 50 leading Chinese artificial intelligence companies to shed light on China's rising AI power. Called the China AI Top 50, the list will be released at the World Economic Forum 2018 Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin city, China on September 18 to 20, in front of top-level government officials, influential business leaders and international media organizations. "China Money Network tracks China's technology and venture capital industry daily, providing intelligence and data to our international audience on what may soon be the world's center of venture capital and technology development," says Nina Xiang, founder of China Money Network. "Despite the growth, there is a lack of solid research and data on the most important tech sectors in China. We will fill that knowledge gap by visiting all of these companies' offices and factories, talking to their founders and staff members, as well as mining our own proprietary data accumulated over the years on this industry."