The discussion of China's AI technology can be carried out from the following three core dimensions:
I. Technical strength assessment
1. Basic research
- Advantages: China leads in the number of AI papers published (second in the world) and patent applications (first in the world), and universities and research institutions have outstanding achievements.
- Shortcomings: There are few original theoretical breakthroughs (such as Transformer architecture), and core algorithms rely on open source frameworks.
2. Application landing
- Advantages: Large-scale commercial use in security (face recognition), e-commerce (recommendation system), manufacturing (industrial quality inspection) and other fields.
- Shortcomings: High-end chips (such as GPUs) rely on imports, and AI chip design capabilities need to be improved.
II. Industrial ecology analysis
1. Policy drive
- National strategy: The 14th Five-Year Plan lists AI as one of the seven key industries of the digital economy, and the core industry scale target in 2025 will exceed 400 billion yuan.
- Local practice: Beijing Zhongguancun, Shanghai Zhangjiang and other places have formed AI industry clusters, and Shenzhen's "AI+hardware" model is prominent.
2. Corporate competition
- Giants’ layout: Baidu (autonomous driving), Huawei (AI chips), SenseTime (visual AI) and other companies have leading global market share.
- Innovation vitality: Unicorn companies (such as Megvii and Yitu) focus on vertical fields, but profit models still need to be explored.
III. Future trend analysis
1. Technological breakthrough direction
- Large models: China ranks second in the world in the number of large models (such as Zhipu GLM and Baidu Wenxin Yiyan), but the computing power cost is high.
- AI ethics: Issues such as data privacy and algorithm bias have promoted the introduction of regulations such as the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative AI Services".
2. Global competition landscape
- Comparison between China and the United States: The United States leads in basic research and high-end chips, while China has advantages in application landing and data scale.
- Challenges and opportunities: It is necessary to break through the "bottleneck" technology (such as lithography machines and EDA tools), while seizing the opportunity of "AI+" to empower traditional industries.
Summary:
China's AI technology is characterized by "strong application and weak foundation". It is necessary to seek a balance between key technology research and ethical norms through policy guidance and collaboration between industry, academia and research, so as to achieve the leap from "technology following" to "ecological leadership".