AI to drive Chinese economic upgrade and transformation

Reporter: Huangshan and Chen Ziqi

[Photo: from VCG]

Artificial Intelligence technology has been developing so quickly recently that it's now going way beyond our expectations in many fields, like self-drive cars, unmanned supermarkets, robot doctors, virtual personal assistants, the list seems endless.

People are astonished by these new concepts because they quite simply sound as if they come straight out of a science fiction novel.

In Chengdu People’s Hospital, a robot doctor was performing surgery for patients, under supervision of a human doctor. Photo was taken in November 20, 2014. [photo: from dfic.cn]

But once we start to accept that science is changing our lives beyond recognition, we start to wonder exactly what AI is, and why it's already having such a considerable influence on our society.

Artificial Intelligence is a subfield of computer science that works towards the creation of intelligent machines that perform tasks just like humans. This technology aims to improve efficiency and reduce avoidable errors. AI is one of the fastest growing technologies and has attracted widespread attention in the global arena. 

Chen Xiaobing is CEO of the Information and Technology Department of Accenture China, a leading global professional services company. He highlights the significant role that AI plays in a booming Chinese economy.

"The latest report released by Accenture indicates AI will increase Chinese economic growth by 710 million US Dollars by 2035. According to some research we have been doing for almost two decades, the labour dividend and marginal utility of capital investment have been continuously decreasing in the past few years. We believe AI will become an important impetus that stimulates the economic growth of our country."

AI is already widely used in various industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, transport, customer services and finance.

JD.com is China's second-largest e-commerce player. It operates at least three unmanned sorting centers across China in its bid to speed up efficiency and improve accuracy. 

In one of these unmanned sorting centers, in Dongguan, Guangdong province, 300 robots are busy working in an area of twelve hundred square meters. By scanning a code printed on each parcel, the robots get information about the buyer's address. They then transport the parcel to the corresponding departure gate, where it will wait for delivery. Yang Shaopeng is a staff member at this sorting center and explains how it works.

"We have a strong control system that sends orders to each robot, telling them what the current task is, and how they can get to the place they need to go to,” Yang Shaopeng said, “There are many QR codes on the ground to help robots know where they are. So by scanning each code, the robots are able to get to the destination assigned by the control system."

At the moment, around 40,000 to 50,000 parcels can be sorted each day in this sorting center. The maximum volume of parcels to be sorted each hour is up to 120,000, which is three or four times what manual workers can do. In the past, the sorting centers had to rely on human members of staff to read the receiver's address and then manually put the parcel on the correct conveyor belt which then took the goods to the departure gate. Mistakes were made – whereas with the robots doing the work, they simply don't happen.

Another commonly-used AI technology that we encounter in our lives is facial recognition. Yitu Technology focuses on practical artificial intelligence research and innovation, especially facial recognition. This company mainly provides advanced AI-based business solutions to build a safer, healthier and more convenient working environment. AI is applied in almost every corner of the firm. Sha Yang is director of the technical development team of this company. He provided one example.

"Now here are 3 gentlemen walking in the corridor. The CCTV camera captures their images while they are walking. Their facial images will be transmitted to our image database. If they are our staff, they will be recognized immediately. It's a good way to secure the safety of our company."

AI chip performs like human's brain. It allows AI to obsorb more data, in order to enhance its learning ability. [Photo: from VCG]

The reason why AI technology can perform tasks normally carried out by human beings is because it can now go through what is known as deep learning, which means it's capable of learning just as humans can. By inputting the task and the desired result, the AI is able to figure out what vital factors need to be involved in order to accomplish the task. For instance, AI can produce house price elasticity for a client. After studying tens of thousands of cases, AI will immediately calculate the family size, location, education quality and convenience of the region as key factors that determine the price. By carrying out algorithms, AI is able to provide the price range.

AI can now learn various subjects and perform multi-tasks with even higher efficiency. Its performance in the past five years or so has become more competitive than even ten years ago. That is because AI's ability was once limited by its machine learning software, but with more powerful graphics processing units, or processors, being invented, machine learning software has been made far more sophisticated. 

As a result, AI can absorb more data, so it can learn new things and perfect its performance. And this is why it's hardly surprising that so many new accomplishments have been made in just recent years.

Chinese tech firms have been devoting themselves to developing computing chips. These chips are used in processors, to improve machine learning software. Hanwuji Technology launched 3 new AI chips in July 2017. These chips allow AI to study difficult, complex content, including image recognition, security monitoring, intelligent drive, voice recognition and natural language processing. Chen Tianshi is CEO of Hanwuji Tech, and he elaborates on how strong machine learning software can actually improve AI's performance.

"When it was run by traditional processors, although AI was able to deal with various tasks, it wasn't much good at dealing with any of them. We have strengthened the ability of the processors, and now AI can successfully manage each task."

The AI industry in China has made a breakthrough, with many new products and services constantly emerging. People who were once tasked with tedious, repetitive work are now free to make their contributions to innovation.

At the same time, other high-end technologies have also seen an accelerating development, such as cloud computing, big data and the internet of things. It is predicted that AI will play an important role in actively promoting economic transformation and helping China develop to a new level. Li Haoyang is an AI specialist, and he foresees the future of this technology.

"In the past few years, China has witnessed an incredible industrial renovation, thanks to the era of the Internet. In the next ten years, it will definitely become an era of AI. By then, AI will be used in every industry, not limited to what we have today."