China Makes Headway in AI

© iStock.

Artificial intelligence research is not slowing. In fact, in 2020, the amount of scientific publication on the subject increased by 34.5% worldwide, according to the AI ​​Index report compiled by Stanford University. And China is taking center stage: the country has significantly outperformed the United States in AI science.

Chinese researchers were already generating a higher volume of publications than any other country, but in 2020 they were the most cited in peer-reviewed journals, taking first place over the Americans. This is an indicator that Chinese research has increased in quality and relevance in the eyes of the scientific community. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt sounded the alarm in a report recently filed in the U.S. Congress: the United States is on track to fall behind China if the government does not step up its investment in the field. The report also points out that the United States risks losing its leadership in other key technologies like quantum computing, robotics, 3D printing and 5G. “We don’t have to go to war with China,” Schmidt said. “We don’t have to have a cold war. We do need to be competitive.”

The Stanford report also mentions that biotechnology-related research is booming. AI research applied to drug discovery and development received more private investments than any other sector last year (US $13.8 billion, 4.5 times more than in 2019). One of AI’s biggest breakthroughs in 2020, according to experts interviewed for the report, is DeepMind’s AlphaFold program, which uses machine learning to perform protein structure predictions.

⇨ Axios, Ina Fried, “China will dominate AI unless U.S. invests more, commission warns.”

⇨ The Verge, James Vincent, “Artificial intelligence research continues to grow as China overtakes US in AI journal citations.”

2021-03-03