AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee

By the time I began my Ph.D., the field of artificial intelligence had forked into two camps: the “rule-based” approach and the “neural networks” approach.

This approach mimics the brain’s underlying architecture, constructing layers of artificial neurons that can receive and transmit information in a structure

back, convincing many in the field

Neural networks require large amounts of two things: computing power and data.

It does this by training itself to recognize deeply buried patterns and correlations connecting the many data points to the desired outcome.

People are so excited about deep learning precisely because its core power—its ability to recognize a pattern, optimize for a specific outcome, make a decision—can

China has already surpassed the United States in terms of

sheer volume as the number one producer of data.

Tying all these services together was the rise of China’s super-app, WeChat, a kind of digital Swiss Army knife for modern life.

Further concentrating those profits is the fact that AI naturally trends toward winner-take-all economics within an industry.

The numbers for these categories lay bare the China-U.S. gap in these key industries. Recent estimates have Chinese companies outstripping U.S. competitors ten to one in quantity of food deliveries and

twenty-first century requires four main building blocks: abundant data, tenacious entrepreneurs, well-trained AI scientists, and a supportive policy environment.

applications. Alibaba has taken the lead on “City

Google’s TensorFlow, an open-source software ecosystem for building deep learning-models,

They aim to build AI-first companies from the ground up, creating a new roster of industry champions for the AI age.

Often called “the singularity,” or artificial superintelligence,