Autonomous driving vehicles may be more ubiquitous much sooner than we originally expected. The commercialization of self-driving technology is expected to gain momentum in China in the next few years, thanks to continuous technological innovation and considerable policy support, industry experts said. China has taken the lead in the research and development as well as application of autonomous driving technology around the world and it is the first country to allow fully driverless paid robotaxi operations, as the market potential of this technology continues to grow in the nation, they added. The self-driving industry is set to witness robust growth in the coming years. The market size of China's self-driving taxi services is expected to surpass 1.3 trillion yuan ($188.6 billion) by 2030, accounting for 60 percent of the country's ride-hailing market by then, said a report by global consultancy IHS Markit.

While underscoring judges' role, top court says intelligent tech will improve system A competent artificial intelligence system to support the judicial sector is expected to be set up by 2025 to help improve legal services, China's top court said. The goal was embedded in the Opinions on Regulating and Strengthening the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Fields, a 20-article guideline issued on Friday by the Supreme People's Court. The document reveals that a better regulated and more effective application and theoretical system for AI utilization in the judicial sector will be set up by 2030 to serve the people and support the entire case-handling process. The top court said that in issuing the document, it aims to promote the in-depth integration of AI with judicial work, strengthen the creation of smart courts and work toward a higher level of digital justice. While calling for advancing the application of AI, the document highlights the legality and security of applying AI to judicial affairs, with stipulation that the technological promotion and application not damage national security, infringe upon State secrets or violate personal data security.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has been attracting increasing attention, money and talent. But much of the hype is the result of myths and misconceptions being peddled by people outside of the field. For many years, the field was growing incrementally, with existing approaches performing around 1-2 percent better each year on standard benchmarks. But there was a real breakthrough in 2012, when computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton and his colleagues at the University of Toronto showed that their "deep learning" algorithms could beat state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms by a margin of 10.8 percentage points on the ImageNet Challenge (a benchmark dataset). At the same time, AI researchers were benefiting from ever-more powerful tools, including cost-effective cloud computing, fast and cheap number-crunching hardware (GPUs), seamless data sharing through the internet, and advances in high-quality open-source software.

Artificial intelligence, the latest facet of information technology, has gained increasing momentum and been widely applied in various sectors with tremendous potential, thus becoming a driving force of scientific and technological development during China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. It has also injected new impetus into the digital economy and played a key role in bolstering high-quality development and accelerating the nation's push for industrial upgrading, experts said. According to the 13th Five-Year Plan, the country called for developing AI, with a focus on fostering the industrial ecology of AI and promoting the integration and application of AI into key industries and fields. In July 2017, the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a plan that set benchmarks for the country's AI sector, with the value of core AI industries predicted to exceed 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) and making the country one of the global leaders in AI innovation by 2030. China has made tremendous strides in AI over the past five years as it has outpaced the United States in the number of worldwide AI-related patent applications, said a report from a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology research unit. The report also pointed out that AI is considered an important direction for industrial upgrading, and the country's strategic plan for AI offers a broad space for the research and development of AI technologies and related industries.

China Mobile is stepping up efforts to promote its 5G and artificial intelligence services by targeting "Generation Z" consumers. M-zone, a popular brand under China Mobile, has teamed up with pop idol Zhang Yixing to popularize new services, including co-branded Xback smartphone phone SIM cards, virtual photo-taking services supported by augmented reality and virtual reality technologies, as well as AI-enabled avatar services. Zhang has also become a partner with M-zone's 5G services and a promoter of its AI services. M-zone's Xback SIM cards are part of the company's broader efforts to better commercialize 5G technologies to create new value. Given Chinese pop idols' growing appeal to tech-savvy, young subscribers, China Mobile hopes pop idols can help boost the popularity of its 5G services.

A team of 12 Chinese artificial intelligence company founders and researchers published a paper in Nature Machine Intelligence in June to showcase and discuss the development of the AI industry in China and the country's plans for this sector, marking the first time that Chinese experts have published an AI-themed article in a top global academic journal. Published monthly since January 2019, Nature Machine Intelligence is a subject-specific arm of the highly-celebrated scientific journal Nature. It covers research on AI, machine learning and robotics. Titled Towards a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence in China, the paper was written by 12 industry experts from prestigious universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University and leading companies such as Beijing-based technology giant ByteDance and Shanghai-based AI company Craiditx. According to the writers, China will become the top AI innovation center in the world by 2030.

Amid light rain in Shanghai, a car automatically stopped at a designated point for pickup and waited for a passenger to get in. After the passenger fastened his or her seat belt, the self-driving car began its journey. It automatically avoided pedestrians, speeded up, slowed down, overtook other cars and navigated traffic lights till it reached its destination. This scene is becoming increasingly common in Shanghai after Didi Chuxing announced on Saturday the opening of its on-demand robo-taxi service to passengers in parts of the city, as the Chinese ride-hailing company steps up the commercialization of self-driving technologies. Didi said that, after signing up on its mobile app, passengers can request rides for free in autonomous vehicles within a designated area in Shanghai covering an automobile exhibition center, business districts, subway stations and hotels in the downtown area.

Artificial intelligence-powered technologies are increasingly being used to help contain the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, with several tech companies tweaking their facial recognition algorithms to identify people who are wearing masks. Enterprises that use facial recognition for access control and attendance system needed to make the tweaks as traditional algorithms may not be sufficient for recognition. For, masks used by the employees often cover some features of the face. Beijing-based tech company Hanwang Technology Co Ltd has upgraded its core algorithm and introduced a new facial recognition system for those who wear masks. Huang Lei, vice-president of the company, said Hanwang Tech took just a month to develop the upgraded version.

Artificial intelligence is now increasingly present in corporate and government decision-making. And although AI tools are still largely in the hands of institutions that focus on profit before purpose, these new technologies could be equally powerful in promoting social good. A joint effort by MIT Solve and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation shows how AI applications can be used to extend prosperity to economically marginalized groups. Already, entrepreneurs are exploring how AI can be used to address some of the world's thorniest challenges in thoughtful, creative and previously impossible ways. AI is most exciting when it can both absorb large amounts of data and identify more accurate correlations (diagnostics), while leaving the causational conclusions and ultimate decision-making to humans.

Roses are red/Violets are blue/Sugar is sweet/And so is... artificial intelligence? Poetry enthusiasts might want to think twice about shedding tears over romantic verses, given that they can be produced by machines using algorithms. The fact that Microsoft's chatbot Xiaoice has published an anthology of poems takes many people aback. But the avatar is making strides using new AI capabilities to create patterns based on words, themes and key colors. In addition to its literary ambitions, Xiaoice is also designing images and patterns on fabrics for international fashion and garment producers.