China's Race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

[JSCh]

China’s facial recognition tech gaining ground
By Chen Qingqing Source:Global Times Published: 2017/8/29 21:48:39

Huge demand, abundance of data driving rapid expansion: experts

A customer makes a payment using facial recognition technology at the first intelligent self-service store launched by appliance retail chain Suning in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province on Monday. Photo: IC

Facial recognition technology is now widely used in different sectors in China and the country has developed an edge in the industry, partly thanks to government support.

If local residents in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, forget to bring their identity cards to process passport applications, officials can process their applications by scanning their faces, the Wuhan Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

Another application scenario is in a sports store in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, where consumers can pay by "face swapping" without taking out their wallets, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The store was opened by Chinese retailer Suning Commerce Group on Monday.

Facial recognition technology is also used at a railway station in Wuhan, where 16 machines were set up at the checkpoints on Monday. It takes less than two seconds to pass through them, according to the financial news site caixin.com.

Facial recognition technology has been developing rapidly in China since 2015, as demand for the application has driven more investment in the sector, Zhou Xi, president of Chongqing-based visual recognition firm CloudWalk, told the Global Times on Monday. Like Zhou, many Chinese entrepreneurs with an academic background and working experience overseas have returned to China to develop facial recognition technology.

"I used to work at Microsoft's speech recognition group, and some people who recognized the potential of China's artificial intelligence (AI) sector have come back to the country in recent years, which is a boon for the industry," Zhou said.

The facial recognition market scale is expected to reach $6.84 billion by 2021, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.3 percent, according to a report released by the global market consultancy MarketsandMarkets in November 2016.

The market is expected to be given further impetus from huge governmental investments in security and surveillance infrastructure, as well as increased public awareness, the report noted.

In China, the market scale for facial recognition technology surpassed 1 billion yuan ($152 million) in 2016, and the CAGR will reach 25 percent, pushing the market to a scale of 5.1 billion yuan by 2021, according to a report published by Beijing-based market research firm Qianzhan.

The rapid growth in China has also attracted Yin Qi, another Chinese entrepreneur with working experience in the US, to come back home to start a facial recognition company. Yin, co-founder of Megvii Technology Inc, also known as Face++, has come up with different facial recognition solutions not only for consumer products but also for local authorities.

Big data advantage

Although Western companies and research institutions started working on facial recognition technology earlier, when Chinese players tapped into the market, they were more innovative and came up with more application solutions ranging from security to finance, Zhang Zhuo, an industry expert with IDC, told the Global Times in an earlier interview.

For instance, during the 2017 South-Southeast Asia Commodity Expo and Investment Fair held in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province from June 12 to 18, by using Hikvision face detection technology developed by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co, the police were able to use a database of 973,661 images to detain five criminal suspects, according to a document the company sent to the Global Times on Monday.

Compared to the development of the technology in Western countries, research and development teams in China can tap into a more abundant database, Zhou noted.

"In the AI sector, the abundance of data and the depth of AI research are equally important," he said, noting that big data helps to improve both the accuracy and speed of recognition technology.

Foreign rivals

Besides Microsoft, other tech giants including Google and Facebook are also pushing forward with their facial recognition apps.

For instance, Google's cloud vision application programming interface provides a comprehensive set of capabilities including object detection and face detection. "Developers have to test apps based on hundreds of millions of images. Google has a database of more than 1 billion images, which gives it an advantage in the sector," Zhou explained.

The expert noted that though China still lags behind the US in AI technology, the country has surpassed the US in facial recognition.

"Considering the large market demand, our company set up an R&D team with over 200 people," he said.

 

[JSCh]

Facial-recognition payment to hit new KFC store
2017-09-01 16:06 Ecns.cn Editor: Mo Hong'e ECNS App Download

(ECNS) -- Alibaba's Ant Financial affiliate and KFC China have announced facial-recognition payment will be available for customers in the fast food restaurant chain's new KPRO store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

Ant Financial has offered its facial recognition technology for four years in other services based on the online payment service Alipay. The integration of Alipay's "Smile to Pay" facial recognition payment solution at KFC enables customers to pay without the need to reach for their wallets.

To finish a payment at a KFC outlet, a customer who has an Alipay account can gaze at a 3D webcam that will take a picture and scan the customer's face. The information will be linked to an Alipay account for identification verification while payment information is shown on a display. A click to confirm will finish the payment process.

"We are excited to launch KPRO – an exciting and fresh new concept for young, tech savvy consumers who are keen to embrace new tastes and innovations," said Joey Wat, president and chief operating officer of Yum China.

The integration of "Smile to Pay" at the new KPRO restaurant is the first commercial application of facial recognition payment technology globally.

Li Ziqing, director of the Center for Biometrics and Security Research at the CAS Institute of Automation, said facial-recognition payment offers higher information safety and convenience

Chen Jidong, who is in charge of biometric identification technology at Ant Financial, said Alipay's system reached a success rate much higher than the naked eye and can also verify if facial information collected comes from a picture, video or a real person.

At the annual CeBit tech exhibition in Hanover, Germany in March 2015, Alibaba founder and chief executive Jack Ma first showed off the "Smile to Pay" technology. Alipay has been eager to apply biometric identification and authentication both on- and offline.

 

[Raphael]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/gol...nt-data-and-infrastructure-to-embrace-ai.html

China's artificial intelligence technology is fast catching up to the US, Goldman Sachs says

• Artificial intelligence (AI) will become a priority for the Chinese government, according to a new Goldman Sachs report
• The report said China has the talent, data and infrastructure needed to fully embrace AI
• China's AI sector includes large internet companies Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Didi Chuxing

China has the resources and ambitious top-down plans to potentially create an intelligent economy powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning over the next several years, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs.

In the report, titled "China's Rise in Artificial Intelligence," the investment bank said the world's second-largest economy has emerged as a major global contender in using AI to drive economic progress.

Goldman said the government and companies have identified AI and machine learning as the next big areas of innovation.

"We believe AI technology will become a priority on the government's agenda, and we expect further national/regional policy and funding support on AI to follow," the bank said.

AI is already widespread: From simple smartphone applications that can tell the weather to complex algorithms that are able to easily beat humans in board games.

Companies such as Google and Microsoft have poured vast amounts of money into research and development to expand the horizon of what AI can achieve. Machines are fed large quantities of data and taught specific tasks, allowing companies to create software that can learn and become smarter.

While the United States is generally considered to be leading the field, other countries are catching up. China, home of internet powerhouses such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, is one of them.

In July, China's State Council issued guidelines on developing AI inside the country and set a goal of becoming a global innovation center for it by 2030. It expects the total output value of AI industries to surpass 1 trillion yuan ($147.80 billion).

The Council encouraged the creation of open-source computing platforms and training more AI professionals and scientists. The guidelines said the government will invest in qualified AI projects and encourage private capital investment.

Key drivers to create value in China's AI space
Goldman identified four key areas where development is needed to create value in AI: talent, data, infrastructure and computing power. The bank concluded China has the talent, data and infrastructure needed to fully embrace AI.

Because AI is a relatively new technology, finding adequate number of talented individuals is a perennial problem. Experts have argued that more needs to be done to train people in new AI-related skills.

To get around talent scarcity in any particular location, U.S. tech giants are opening research labs around the world, according to Goldman. Chinese companies are also following their lead by opening Silicon Valley research labs and offering comparable salaries, Goldman said.

Earlier this year, Baidu snagged Microsoft executive Qi Lu as part of a push into AI. Meanwhile, Tencent tapped up former Microsoft scientist Yu Dong to head up its AI research facility in Seattle.

China's vast population, much of which is connected to the internet, gives the country an advantage in generating data. Moreover, China's large internet companies have comprehensive online ecosystems increasingly penetrating more of the daily lives of the country's internet users, generating volumes of data, according to Goldman.

"China understandably generates (about) 13 percent of the digital information globally. By 2020, we expect this to grow to around 20 percent to 25 percent as China's economy emerges as the world's largest," the bank said. It predicted China would generate about 9 to 10 zettabytes of data; one zettabye is about 1 trillion gigabytes.

When it comes to infrastructure, most major companies involved in AI research have adopted open-sourced platforms to attract resources and talent into their ecosystems.

Chinese companies are also following the trend, said Goldman. For example, Baidu has an open-sourced machine-learning platform called PaddlePaddle that stands for Parallel Distributed Deep Learning. Baidu also announced project Apollo, another open-sourced platform to develop autonomous driving.

AI algorithms and their performances are also limited by computing power that depends on the processing unit. Goldman noted that China had been "heavily dependent on foreign suppliers" for processing chips, but there was some "encouraging progress" in its domestic semiconductor industry.

The bank said that it expected China's dependency on foreign suppliers to decrease over time.

Companies to watch out for
Goldman said it expected the initial benefits of AI will go to China's so-called BAT: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. That's because these companies have substantial and unique data sets and have the right size of resources to take advantage of the the technology.

Another company to watch is Chinese on-demand services provider Meituan-Dianping. It uses big data analytics to generate the most efficient delivery route in less than 100 milliseconds, said Goldman.

China's largest ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing is also working on deep learning, human-machine interaction, computer vision and intelligent driving technologies. It processes over 4,500 terabyte of data, receives over 20 billion route requests and handles more than 20 million orders on average on a daily basis, according to Goldman.

iFLYTek is a company that focuses on speech and language recognition. The report said it has the largest market share in China's intelligent speech industry.

Hikvision is a technology company that uses AI for surveillance products, including intelligent cameras.

The report said some of the other companies to watch out for included Mobvoi, which is involved in speech and natural language and SenseTime, which focuses on computer vision and deep learning. Also included were drone maker DJI and humanoid-robot maker UBTECH.

 

[qwerrty]

An Early Look at Baidu’s Custom AI and Analytics Processor
August 22, 2017 Nicole Hemsoth

Baidu has a new processor up its sleeve called the XPU. For now, the device has just been demonstrated in FPGA, but if it continues to prove useful for AI, analytics, cloud, and autonomous driving the search giant could push it into a full-bore ASIC.

The architecture they designed is aimed at this diversity with an emphasis on compute-intensive, rule-based workloads while maximizing efficiency, performance and flexibility, says Baidu researcher, Jian Ouyang. He unveiled the XPU today at the Hot Chips conference along with co-presenters from FPGA maker, Xilinx.

The XPU has 256 cores clustered with one shared memory for data synchronization. Note that this is not so different from a MIPS like architecture. The cores are small with no cache or OS and can be interfaced with a domain specific ISA. The efficiency, which is on par with a CPU, according to Ouyang, comes from a custom circuit for specific workloads. The flexibility comes from the ISA cores that are optimized for rule-base workloads. Somehow the all 256 cores are running at 600MHz, he says. Paper should be forthcoming with more details in near future.

“The XPU has similar efficiency as an X86 core for compute-intensive and regular memory access workloads when tested on microbenchmarks. The scalability for XPU for workloads with data synchronization should be improved further, and the scalability of XPU for workloads without data synchronization is linear with the core number,” Ouyang adds.

https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/08/22/first-look-baidus-custom-ai-analytics-processor/

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Baidu’s AI Algorithm Parses Video
August 24, 2017
George Leopold

(Navidim/Shutterstock)

China’s heavy investment in artificial intelligence is beginning to bear fruit with a report of researchers at Baidu, the Internet search giant, winning a competition designed to test the ability of AI algorithms to recognize and classify actions in video clips.

The ActivityNet Challenge was designed to gauge the ability of AI algorithms to move beyond categorizing still images to recognize actions contains in 10-second video clips. Baidu Research (NASDAQ: BIDU) said its AI approach identified the contents of a database of 300,000 YouTube videos with an average accuracy rate of 87.6 percent. That rate was 1.5 percent higher than the second place finisher, the company added.

https://www.datanami.com/2017/08/24/baidus-ai-algorithm-parses-video/
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Ex-Baidu Scientist Blazes AI Shortcut
Native support for 3D tensor operation
Junko Yoshida
8/31/2017 05:31 PM EDT


MADISON, Wis. — Ren Wu, formerly a distinguished scientist at Baidu, has pulled a new AI chip company out of his sleeve, called NovuMind, based in Santa Clara, Calif.

In an exclusive interview with EE Times, Wu discussed the startup’s developments and what he hopes to accomplish.

Established two years ago, with 50 people, including 35 engineers working in the U.S. and 15 in Beijing, NovuMind is testing what Wu describes as a minimalist approach to deep learning.

Rather than designing general-purpose deep-learning chips like those based on Nvidia GPUs or Cadence DSPs, NovuMind has focused exclusively on developing a deep learning accelerator chip that “will do inference very efficiently,” Wu told us.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0&doc_id=1332226&page_number=1

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Tencent joins the fray with Baidu in providing artificial intelligence applications for self-driving cars
Members of the alliance included Sebastian Thrun, who spearheaded Google’s driverless car and Beijing Automotive
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 27 August, 2017, 4:48pm

Internet giant Tencent Holdings has formed an alliance with a clutch of industry players including Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC) to ramp up development and tech transfer of artificial intelligence (AI) that is used in autonomous driving.

http://www.scmp.com/business/compan...ms-alliance-push-ai-applications-self-driving

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China’s State Development & Investment Corp Leads $100M Round In AI Chip Maker Cambricon
Pan Yue
August 18, 2017 — 22:59 HKT

SDIC Chuangye Investment Management, a subsidiary of State Development & Investment Corp, has led a US$100 million series A round in Cambricon Technologies Co., Ltd., an artificial intelligence chip developer.

An investment arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, CAS Investment Management Co., Ltd., Chinese big data firm Turing, Oriza Seed Venture Capital and Yonghua Capital also participated in the round, according to Chinese media reports.

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AI startups see record financing in H1
By Jing Shuiyu | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-08-03 09:52

China's artificial intelligence-focused startups received record financing of 19.3 billion yuan ($2.87 billion) in the first half of 2017, with the mid and late-stage deals dominating the period, a report said on Wednesday.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/tech/2017-08/03/content_30340585.htm

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China dominating AI competition hold in Stanford, US
Aug 5, 2017

https://rajpurkar.github.io/SQuAD-explorer/

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Chinese driverless cars start-up attracts Daimler investment
By Dave Leggett | 31 July 2017

Chinese self-driving start-up company Momenta has raised around US$46m in its latest round of funding, with Daimler a major investor according to Chinese media.

The Wall Street Journal also reported the move and noted that Western automakers are making a number of strategic investments with Chinese partners. Private equity firms are also involved in the financing round for Momenta, described as a Beijing-based company focused on 'building autonomous driving brains'.

The China Daily reported that Momenta is resourced by an R&D team from top Chinese universities and is developing "deep-learning-derived software in perception, semantic HD mapping, and path planning".
https://www.just-auto.com/news/chin...-up-attracts-daimler-investment_id177799.aspx
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‘AI English teacher’ gets $100m
11:39 PM at Jul 27, 2017

A Chinese language learning startup that specialises in AI and has 45 million registered students has secured US$100 million in funding to help it grow.

With its AI English teachers, Liulishuo is different from the dozens upon dozens of other education startups in China. Built by Wang Yi, a former Google product manager, the service uses artificial intelligence to assess a student’s English-speaking ability and analyze their learning needs in order to create a tailor-made online teaching program.

https://www.techinasia.com/ai-english-teacher-100m
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China-based Horizon Robotics actively materializing autonomous driving solutions
By Digitimes Jul 25, 2017, 3:39 am50 pts

China-based Horizon Robotics has scored a significant achievement in the development of autonomous driving technology, as the technology has entered the stage of road test and the company is gearing up for mass production of high-performance chips needed in autonomous driving solutions, according to…

http://www.digitimes.com/newregister/join.asp?view=Article&DATEPUBLISH=2017/07/25&PAGES=PD&SEQ=208

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iFlytek marries voice tech with artificial intelligence
By Ma Si | China Daily | Updated: 2017-07-24 08:24


An employee of iFlytek demonstrates a voice-controlled speaker at an expo in Hefei, Anhui province. [Photo/Xinhua]

In November 2016, US President Barack Obama in Washington "addressed" a conference in Beijing via a video link and highlighted the big leaps made by artificial intelligence or AI. As if to underscore his point, Obama switched to fluent Chinese and joked he wanted to contribute to China's development in his post-retirement years.

Well, turned out, it was not really Obama who made that speech. For the record: the former US president hardly knows Chinese. The video clip was produced by iFlytek Co Ltd using AI, to demonstrate its speech synthesis capability, which can produce human voice.

The audience was wowed by the machine's ability to reproduce Obama's tone, intonations, inflections and pitch in Chinese words.

The video is part of iFlytek's broad efforts to tap into voice computing, which is said to be the next major medium for man-machine interaction.

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Chinese Academy Of Sciences Unit Leads $22M Round In Robot Sensor Firm Slamtec
July 12, 2017 — 11:02 HKT

A fund managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Holdings Co., Ltd. has led a RMB150 million (US$22 million) round in Shanghai Slamtec Co., Ltd., a Chinese company providing affordable and high-performance laser sensor solutions for robots in auto localization and navigation.

Its major products are low-cost LiDAR sensors, which cost around several hundred RMB (RMB100 is around US$15), less than one ninth the costs of industrial grade sensors. LiDAR instruments fire rapid pulses of laser light at a surface in order to measure shape and distance.

Other products include SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) solutions based on LiDAR technology, and the Zeus General Purpose Robot Platform.

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2...-leads-22m-round-in-robot-sensor-firm-slamtec

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Chinese AI Start-Up SenseTime Raises $410 Million Series B Round
July 11, 2017 — 19:14 HKT

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime has completed a US$410 million series B round, in what the company calls the largest private financing rounds ever closed by an AI start-up globally.

Founded in 2014, SenseTime says it focuses on innovative computer vision and deep learning technologies. The company provides applications in the field of face recognition, language recognition, vehicle recognition, object recognition and image processing.

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2...p-sensetime-raises-410-million-series-b-round

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Baidu, China Life To Launch $1B Internet, AI Fund
August 25, 2017 — 10:43 HKT

Chinese Internet giant Baidu Inc. and China Life Insurance Co., Ltd will launch a RMB7 billion (US$1 billion) private equity fund targeting investment opportunities in the Internet, artificial intelligence, online finance and mobility sectors.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/baidu-and-china-life-set-up-us1-billion-ai-fund.html

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Tencent Capitalizes On Massive User Data To Achieve AI Dominance
August 22, 2017 — 12:25 HKT

Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. has a reputation for cautiously following in the footsteps of others in new businesses segments, then quietly outsmarting the first-movers. The company looks to be using the same strategy in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). So while rival Baidu Inc. has proclaimed itself an AI company, along with numerous other Chinese companies, Tencent is working behind the scenes to become a leader in the field.

Tencent has an advantage in the AI race due to its access to massive amounts of user data. Its popular WeChat mobile app is expected to reach one billion users this year, one of a few mobile apps reaching that milestone alongside Facebook and Whatsup. Tencent founder Pony Ma has publicly stated that data is one of the four major components of AI technology, along with computing capabilities, talent and application venues.

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IDG Co-Leads $14M Round In Chinese AI-Powered Data Visualization Firm Haiyun
Pan Yue
August 16, 2017 — 10:57 HKT

Founded in 2013, Haiyun provides enterprises with data visualization solutions. The company claims that unlike traditional big data companies, its services are based on both big data and artificial intelligence technology. It says its visualization analysis platform covers 323 types of data, with 651 application programming interfaces, and has been used by companies in over 20 industries. It has also developed products specifically targeting the smart driving, smart security and healthcare sectors.

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Qiming Leads $30M Round In Chinese AI Start-Up Abcfintech
Li Dongmei
September 1, 2017 — 14:01 HKT

Abcfintech, a Chinese AI services provider targeting the financial services sector, has raised a total of US$30 million through an angel round and a series A round. Chinese venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners led the round, with Source Code Capital, SIG Asia Investment and Welight Capital also participating, according to a company announcement.

Founded in 2016, Abcfintech has developed two cloud-based AI solution products for financial companies. Its products, Modeling.ai and Eversight.ai, can improve the efficiency of how securities research and investment decisions are made in these firms, as well as to predict future trend.

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China fosters innovative AI research through competition
by Tristan Greene — 10 days ago in Artificial Intelligence

The Chinese government has been unequivocal in its goal to become the global AI leader. Three of the largest tech companies in China — Sougou, China’s second-biggest search giant, Sinovation Ventures, and internet firm Bytedance — have joined forces to bring that plan to fruition. The companies pooled funds and data to create the AI Challenger contest.

The contest features a prize pool of 2 million yuan, or approximately $300,000. Entrants will presumably be judged on innovation in the field of AI research. Contestants will eventually have access to a data-set featuring 300,000 image-based objects and more than 10 million text-based data entries.

Researchers participating in the program essentially have access to enough data to jump-start any machine-learning project. AI is ‘taught’ by feeding it data and allowing algorithms to create conclusions and patterns, with the goal being a system that gets better over time. According to China Daily, Wang Xiaochuan, chief executive of Sougou, said:

In the US, professors and researchers would complain about falling [behind] big corporations due to the lack of data. Here we hope to set up a longstanding contest and cultivate talents by providing them with a huge data pool.

China represents one of the top three nations for AI research, alongside the US and India. At this point experts might be arguing over whether we should fear killer robots or not, but it’s clear that there’s no stopping the full-scale implementation of AI into our lives.

It’s apparent that China intends to set the pace, so the question for everyone else is: will second place be good enough in the AI race?

https://thenextweb.com/artificial-i...enger-contest-will-accelerate-its-ai-program/

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[onebyone]

A big part of Huawei's multi-year push to improve its image has been improving the hardware it builds to go inside them, and its latest processor is more than up to the challenge.




WinFuture[/a], this chip has significantly more transistors onboard (5.5 billion) than the Snapdragon (3.1 billion). It includes a dedicated "Neural Processing Unit," that appears to consist of purpose-built silicon (as Apple is rumored to have in the works) which differs Qualcomm's approach on the current Snapdragon 835 (which is inside the latest Galaxy S8 / Note8 phones as well as LG's V30). There, a "Hexagon" DSP built for other types of number crunching works with the rest of the chip to improve AI performance.



Follow all the latest news from IFA 2017 here!


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/huawei-apos-next-mobile-chipset-121500582.html

 

[cirr]

Huawei Unveils The Kirin 970, The World’s First Processor With A Dedicated NPU

by Habeeb Onawole 53 mins ago

The Kirin 970 is official and Huawei has set a record with the new flagship chip. The 10nm chip is the first mobile computing unit with a built-in AI computing Neural Processing Unit NPU.

Before we dive into the configuration of the Kirin 970, lets talk about its AI NPU. Instead of letting the CPU carry out AI computing tasks, the NPU is assigned the tasks and it does it better and faster. According to the figures provided, the Kirin 970’s NPU delivers performance that is 25 times more than the CPU’s, and efficiency that is 50 times greater. That means lesser time and power required for AI tasks.

The TSMC-built Kirin 970 is an 8-core CPU with a clockspeed of uP to 2.4GHz i.e. 4 x Cortex A73 at 2.4GHz + 4 x Cortex 53 at 1.8GHz. It has a 12-core Mali G72MP12 GPU, making it the first commercially available chip to use ARM’s latest GPU. The GPU provides a 20% performance increase over the previous generation as well as a 50% increase in efficiency. Its Kirin NPU can perform 1.92 Teraflops when using 16-bit floating point numbers.

Huawei CEO RIchard Yu Announcing The Kirin 970

The Kirin 970 has 4.5G Cat.18 LTE and offers gigabit LTE speeds of 1.2Gbps. It also features an advanced dual ISP with face and motion detection, 4-hybrid focus, low-light and motion shooting. Since the Kirin 970 will be appearing in the Huawei Mate 10 series first, expect them to have an impressive camera performance.

The chip also has HDR10 support and 4K video encode and decode. It supports LPPDR 4X RAM (1883MHz) and UFS 2.1 storage. It also features an i7 sensor processor, iNSE and TEE security engines and support for HiFi audio.

Huawei says it has built an open AI ecosystem so apps can access NPU capabilities directly and via 3rd party AI frameworks. The Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro are the first two devices that will be powered by the new chipset and they will be announced in Munich on October 16.

https://www.gizmochina.com/2017/09/02/huawei-unveils-kirin-970-worlds-first-processor-dedicated-npu/

 

[MultaniGuy]

Congratulations to China.

May China prosper.

We should start buying Chinese smartphones instead of Korean or Japanese ones or American ones!

 

[shadows888]

Congratulations to China.

May China prosper.

We should start buying Chinese smartphones instead of Korean or Japanese ones or American ones!

Chinese smartphones already dominate the Indian market. what's taking you guys so long?

http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...artphone-market-51-share-q1-2017-report-62166

 

[Flynn Swagmire]

Only thing holding me from migrating to a huawei phone is its EMUI Android skin...

 

[qwerrty]

Google is hiring AI talent from China even though it’s still blocked in the country
Posted 21 hours ago by Jon Russell (@jonrussell)


Google’s core search service has been blocked in China for over seven years, but that isn’t stopping the internet giant from snapping up artificial intelligence and machine learning talent from the country.

AI is tipped to become pivotal to the future of tech, with high-profile figures such as former Google China lead Kaifu Lee betting big on its potential to impact “every profession and every industry.”

Google still maintains a low-profile presence in China — speaking at a TechCrunch China event in 2015, Eric Schmidt claimed it never left the country — and it is hiring for at least four positions involving AI or machine learning at its Beijing office, according to its website. It is also advertising roles within its locations in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Bloomberg noted.

The hiring push from Google comes as Chinese firms increasingly expand their talent acquisition strategies to include the U.S., and Silicon Valley in particular, to suck up the finest engineers on the planet. The likes of Alibaba, Tencent, Didi and Baidu operates R&D centers in California, while match-making services — like an AI-powered hiring platform from ex-Googlers — have sprouted up in response to demand.

The U.S. may be ground zero for tech talent today, but China is giving it a good run for its money. That’s likely only to grow fiercer in the future, and the Chinese government itself has prioritized AI.

A state-led development plan announced this summer aims to make China the world’s AI leader by 2030. The ambitious program is aiming to build a domestic industry worth $150 billion per year, with the government prepared to invest heavily in education and development to make the vision a reality.

Given the scope of that ambition, and the growing ranks of AI engineers at China’s top firms, Google is right to take a look at the talent on offer.

So far it is the first to make a major push in that area. Other U.S. firms that are blocked in the country, including Facebook and Twitter, maintain sales posts in China — where they help Chinese firms reach global audiences — but for now there’s little more to their local presence than selling. That said, Facebook has experimented with a social app for China but it seems unlikely that it will make a major move any time soon.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/05/google-wants-to-hire-ai-talent-from-china/

 

[cirr]

AI - computer vision makes our eyes smarter

2017-09-11 14:18

chinadaily.com.cn Editor: Huang Mingrui

Zhang Mo (third left), founder of AI computer vision engine service provider Yi+, talks with her colleagues in Beijing, Sept 5,2017.（Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn）

Imagine ordering in a blink of an eye a dress supermodel Liu Wen is wearing in a video.

Instead of entering the description of the dress in a search engine, all you have to do is move the mouse to Liu, and all the information about the dress including the brand, size and price will prop up on the screen and you can buy it instantly!

Yi+, a Beijing-based tech startup, is making "shopping while watching" possible by its cutting-edge technology in computer vision, a field of artificial intelligence that deals with making computers gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos.

"The computer vision technology can not only identify faces but also other items such as flowers, cups or balls," said Zhang Mo, founder of the startup.

With the assistance of the technology, "our eyes can become smarter" as more visual information is provided, she added.

Having recently been rated as one of the top 10 female entrepreneurs in tech in a report released by Ali Research Institute, China Entrep Mulan Club and Alibaba Innovation Center, Zhang believes her qualities of rational thinking, being tech-savvy, intuition and sensitivity to fashion and trends give her advantages over male entrepreneurs.

Zhang started the company three years ago after getting $200,000 angle investment from the Silicon Valley.

She might have established a company in the United States but made the decision to return to China.

"China is a huge market with bright prospects. I hope our products can ultimately serve the Chinese consumers and make a difference," she said.

Yi+ is situated in Zhongguancun, "the second Silicon Valley", in Zhang's words.

The company got investment from China's leading online video services Youku Tudou and LeBox Capital at the end of 2015, which made Yi+ one of the first global companies providing large-scale "shopping while watching" technical solutions.

Zest for entrepreneurship

Zhang had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and when she was an undergraduate she established a tutoring website, which started to make money within one month.

She also had entrepreneurial experience in the AI industry and accumulated extensive experience in this field after graduation from Peking University.

Working at IBM for several years, she then decided to join the Masters of Science Technopreneurship and Innovation Programme (MSc TIP) at Nanyang Technological University in 2012.

She traveled to about 50 countries in two years and talked to numerous entrepreneurs in tech such as Mark Zuckerberg in the US before getting the $200,000 angle investment.

Confident of the future

Having survived the first three years, Yi+ has entered a stable stage of development and revenue is covering expenditure this year.

"Our mission is to explore business value in massive visual information and we try to create products which provide better consumer experience so that more people would like to use it and more business value can be found."

Zhang said how to provide the best consumption experience and make precise marketing by not interrupting the consumers is a challenge and her company has technological advantages in precision algorithm.

"Our technology is of world class and we have beaten big companies Google, Baidu and Tencent to win 10 first prizes in 2015 and 2016 at the ImageNet contest - the Olympics of the computer vision industry."

AI computer vision is not restricted by different languages and boundaries of nations, so AI technological companies focusing on this field have opportunities to go abroad, said Zhang.

"China has the largest and most dynamic market. The engine of AI innovation may be in China in the future."

"Yi+ would like to explore the next generation of interactive ways and services by using computer vision technology."

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/09-11/273071.shtml

 

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AI set to revolutionize healthcare industry in China

2017-09-11 16:43

chinadaily.com.cn Editor: Huang Mingrui

Li Xiaoxiao, left, founder and CEO of Beijing Koboro Health Science and Technology, talks with Yang Song, product director of Koboro, in Beijing on Sept 6, 2017. (Photo/chinadaily.com.cn)

Having a clear picture about one's own health and control over one's overall health management - including prevention and prognosis - is a dream of many people, especially when it takes hours to register for a five-minute doctor's visit.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for people to receive a checkup in offices and receive medical advice online, which can lead to a revolution of the healthcare industry in China," said Li Xiaoxia, founder of Beijing Koboro Health Science and Technology.

A Beijing-based tech startup, Koboro has developed an app called "Daxia Health" which uses a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide medical services, according to Li.

"The AI technology-supported 'Daxia Health' application can help analyze and process large amounts of health data collected from the clients and give precise, individualized recommendations which are checked by human doctors to guarantee accuracy," Li said.

The technology can greatly improve efficiency for both doctors and patients and transform the healthcare industry, added Li. She has recently been rated as a top 10 female entrepreneur in tech in a report released by Ali Research Institute, China Entrep Mulan Club and Alibaba Innovation Center.

Big companies like Google, Microsoft and Alibaba have started to tap into the AI-powered medical care market in recent years, Xinhua reported.

"Although healthcare big data systems are still in their infancy across the world, China has an opportunity to take a leading role. China's increasing senior population provides a large amount of data," Li said.

China had more than 230 million people aged 60 or above at the end of 2016,16.7 percent of the total population, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Elderly people in China are expected to account for about one quarter of the population by 2030, Xinhua reported.

"All the products of Koboro are based on fundamental needs of doctors and use the 'Internet Plus healthcare' model to achieve the ultimate goal of helping clients stay healthy in a full life cycle," product director Yang Song said.

Koboro divides clients' life cycles into 13 stages from a half year before birth to more than 90 years old. Clients at different stages can receive professional medical suggestions, running the gamut from Western medicine to traditional Chinese medicine, Li said.

Liang Wei, a health management doctor at Koboro, displayed a health report of a 26-year-old female whose "body age" is about 51 years old.

"Based on this person's health check and basic information, the AI-supported system can predict the risks for her to get certain diseases. Our health management team, including sports specialists and nutritionists, can give detailed recommendations to prevent these diseases," Liang said.

The recommendations could be so detailed that the client would know the hours she should walk, the number of steps to walk each day for exercise and the kinds and amounts of food she should eat, Li said.

Li Xiaoxia said the profit rate of Koboro was between 30 and 40 percent in the first two years after its establishment in 2012. She has invested recent years' profits in AI-supported systems and relevant products.

Li, who is confident in the future of Koboro, said the profits can be in the tens of millions or even several billion in the future, as internet healthcare can generate profits from various channels, such as health management services and healthcare products.

Inspired by her father, who used to be a barefoot doctor, Li also wants to have a close relationship with patients by being there whenever they need support. This is difficult when people are busy and fly to different places.

"Thanks to developments in data, AI and internet technology, it is possible to standardize the process to prevent and control chronic diseases and establish a healthcare platform online to benefit more ordinary people in China," Li said.

The great business opportunities emerging in the industry in China also come from the Chinese government's support, Li added.

In Oct 2016, Chinese authorities released "Healthy China 2030", a blueprint that aims to improve the health of the people. The blueprint covers areas such as public health services, the medical industry and food and drug safety, China Daily reported.

This document is not only the first national-level medium- to long-term strategic plan in the health sector since 1949, but also demonstrates the political commitment of China to participate in global health governance and fulfill the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals agenda, according to the World Health Organization.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/09-11/273098.shtml

 

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With many Chinese talents returning home, China gets set to overtake the U.S. in technology breakthroughs

2017-09-13 10:09

Global Times Editor: Li Yan

A recent report by Goldman Sachs indicated that China has the resources and ambitious, high-level government plans to support artificial intelligence (AI) development and machine learning over the next few years. In the report, the investment bank identified four key factors for the growth of the AI industry - talent, data, infrastructure and computing power. By now, China already has the first three factors needed to fully embrace AI. Some talents who studied and worked overseas shared their stories with the Global Times to explain why they came back to China.

Wang Jianzong, AI Senior Director of Ping An Group, said he was not hesitant when he made the decision two years ago to come back to China after spending many years in the U.S.

Wang graduated with a PhD in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Central China's Hubei Province, and then went on to Rice University in Texas as a visiting scholar in 2009. Afterward, he spent the next several years in the U.S. majoring in cloud computing research as well as artificial intelligence (AI) for his postdoctoral.

"I went to study in America because that's the birthplace of cloud computing. However, I came back as I hold optimistic views about China's AI prospective," Wang told the Global Times over the weekend.

While working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, the 36-year-old man also accumulated academic and research experience in deep-learning study and medical analysis.

"I had faith in AI's future at that time," he said.

Wang is among many young Chinese talents in the information technology sector who choose to return to China after studying abroad for years.

In the first quarter of 2017, there were in total more than 1.9 million AI talents worldwide. Over 50,000 of them were created by China, according to a report released by the professional social network LinkedIn in July.

Compared with AI development in the U.S., China is now outsmarting in the quality and quantity of data, Wang said during the Artificial Intelligence Conference (AICC) held in Beijing on Thursday.

It was the first AI conference in China that attracted hundreds of participants including Chinese Internet giants ''BAT'' - Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings.

The industry is now embracing significant changes thanks to the central government's efforts to push forward AI development in China.

A giant market

Wang is now focusing on deep-learning study and applying technologies in different financial scenarios, such as anti-fraud efforts within insurance services, voice recognition and user profiling.

"Thanks to my experiences overseas, I have built a deep-learning team within Ping An," he said, noting that China now enjoys abundant AI data as well as powerful algorithm platforms.

Also, compared to the U.S., China has more open access to data, he opined.

AI's development over recent years has been driven by three fundamentals - high chip processing performance, data and algorithms.

A server's processing speed is now 60 times faster than it was two decades ago, and its high performance, in addition to abundant data amid Internet of Things, is supporting the AI boom in China.

Both the U.S. and Chinese governments have moved the AI industry to a strategic position recently. For example, the Obama administration rolled out several national plans to support the growing AI industry in 2016. And the U.S. government has become fully aware of AI's impact on society, including on employment, education, public safety, and national security.

The State Council, China's cabinet, unveiled new guidelines for the development of the AI industry in July, which it hopes will motivate the sector to reach the same level as other advanced countries in terms of technology and applications by 2020.

Also, the national AI technology market scale is expected to surpass 150 billion yuan ($23 billion) by then, and the related industry scale will be over 1 trillion yuan.

"The government support is a boon for enterprises in both R&D and application," said Hu Leijun, vice president of Inspur, an information technology company based in Ji'nan, capital of East China's Shandong Province.

The company provided about 20.4 percent of the servers in the Chinese market in 2016, which have now become a major partner with BAT and other Internet start-ups working on AI development.

U.S. chipmakers have taken a leading position in the basic theories of some core technologies of AI, such as central processing units and graphics processing units.

But Chinese tech firms have been catching up rapidly as the booming market attracts more investment and resources, Hu told the Global Times.

Application-driven growth

Some Chinese AI talents graduate with their first and second degrees in China but pursue PhDs in the U.S. Zhou Xi, president of CloudWalk Technology Co, a company specializing in facial recognition technology based in Southwest China's Chongqing, is one of them.

"I used to do research work at NEC labs, where many important figures in AI such as Yann LeCun and Leo Bouttou had tapped into the deep-learning sector," he told the Global Times.

The scientist was referring to U.S.-based NEC Laboratories America Inc, which has locations in Princeton, New Jersey and Cupertino, California. Its areas of research span across various sectors including data science, machine learning as well as optical networking and sensing.

"Image recognition is meaningful to the universe. One day, I saw a news report about how a camera installed in a swimming pool could automatically recognize if someone was drowning by analyzing their behavior," Zhou said, noting that the technology can help people in many other ways too.

Between 2007 and 2011, Zhou and his team won several visual competitions, for example, the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge, run by U.S.-based large visual database ImageNet.

"Those honors made me happy. However, they [the technologies] have to be applied in daily life to help others, like the camera in the swimming pool," he said, noting that how to actually apply the technology was the reason why he returned to China and became an entrepreneur.

Today, the application of AI technologies such as image and voice recognition has extended into many sectors in China. A bus system can now use data algorithms to analyze daily passenger flow in order to manage bus schedules.

Facial recognition systems can help police identify criminals in public areas and are now being widely used in railway stations, metros, airports and so on.

Voice interaction technology is enabling home appliances to become smarter, and Chinese tech giants such as Xiaomi and Alibaba have all unveiled features like smart speakers for such products.

AI will reshape five major sectors - public safety, Internet and e-commerce, consumer electronics, automotive and medical services - in the coming years, according to a report released by China International Capital Corp (CCIC) in June.

And application by governments, other authorities and large-sized enterprises will soon account for over 60 percent of the market share in China, CCIC forecast.

"If we always stay within the academic field without actually using it [technology] in real life, we can't make any real changes," Zhou said.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/09-13/273400.shtml

 

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Semester begins for China's first group of AI graduate students

2017-09-15 08:40

Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

More than 120 graduate students at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, known as Beihang University, began attending classes on artificial intelligence (AI) Thursday.

As China's first group of graduate students majoring in AI, they will receive joint training from both the university and AI-related companies.

The curriculum includes cognitive science, visual perception, unmanned systems and robotics. Some courses will be taught in company labs and beside production lines. Students are also required to intern and take part in project research and development for at least one year in one of the participating companies.

According to the university, 30 percent of the teachers are leading industry experts, and another 30 percent are renowned scholars. Over 90 percent of the teachers have overseas work or education experience related to AI.

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/09-15/273684.shtml

Alibaba testing face recognition technology

2017-09-15 09:26

China Daily Editor: Liang Meichen

Two units under internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are working in tandem to test facial recognition technology that will allow users to unlock delivery drop boxes.

Cainiao Network Technology Co Ltd, an Alibaba-backed courier aggregator, is promoting such an application to its partner delivery firms and parcel pickup facility providers in a test run in Shanghai, the company said during a customer conference in Shanghai on Thursday.

The technology is provided by Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba's fintech subsidiary, which since September has enabled customers to pay by literally flashing a smile in a KFC store in Hangzhou, where Alibaba is headquartered.

An army of specially equipped kiosks have been installed across five locations at Shanghai's financial district of Lujiazui, with cameras scanning people's faces to verify their identities. The companies plan for a nationwide rollout when the pilot projects mature in the city.

In the first instance, the machine would compare the detected face with the image logged by public security authorities, said Chen Jidong, director of biometric identification technology at Ant Financial.

To achieve that, users need to subscribe to a service embedded in the Alipay digital wallet, which gives the app the green light to capture their personal information to confirm their identity, he noted.

This is possible thanks to 550 million real-name users on Alipay, through which they pay bills, settle traffic fines, manage wealth and get small loans.

"The scanning system focuses on your face, so it doesn't matter if you change your makeup or wear a wig," Chen said, adding that multiple tests have been conducted under various environments such as under sunlight or in the dark to ensure a smooth and consistent performance.

A demonstration video displayed during the conference suggested the whole process takes roughly five seconds, significantly shortening the conventional method of parcel retrieval by typing in text codes, which normally takes 16 seconds, the companies said.

"I would expect this investment and new process to save a substantial amount of time and ensure security," said Zou Jianhua, CEO of Diyi Box, a parcel pickup facility provider. "Just in Shanghai, at least 10,000 parcel pickup locations will be equipped with such functionality in three years."

Chen said that the false-acceptance rate, or the chances that the system incorrectly accepts an unauthorized user, should be below 0.001 percent and be further lowered to ensure bank-level security.

Shenzhen-based SF Express, a leading Chinese courier that is competing with Cainiao's network, said it is also developing biometric-based technologies to apply to its own parcel pickup cabinets.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/09-15/273729.shtml

 

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Nestle, JD.com unveil China's first AI nutrition assistant

2017-09-20 09:08 Xinhua Editor: Gu Liping

Global food and beverage giant Nestle launched its own artificial intelligence (AI) product with Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com Tuesday, in a move to meet the demands of increasingly tech-savvy Chinese consumers.

Nestle XiaoAI, an AI family nutrition assistant, is a smart speaker equipped with nutrition and health knowledge that can answer questions from users on custom recipes, music and nutrition.

The device is built into JD.com's best-selling DingDong smart speaker system, which was co-developed by JD.com and China's largest AI voice tech supplier Iflytek. A limited edition beta version of Nestle XiaoAI is now available on JD.com.

Nestle's AI attempt is part of a global trend to go beyond traditional products with digital services offering convenience, entertainment and education for healthier living, according to Rashid Aleem Qureshi, Nestle Greater China Chairman and CEO.

China is Nestle's second largest market with rapidly changing trends and the smart speaker will help Nestle keep their finger on the pulse of Chinese consumers by collecting and analyzing data, Qureshi said.

He said Nestle would keep upgrading the device based on consumer demand and looked forward to cooperating with more partners in this field.

China released a national nutrition plan for 2017-2030 in July, which encourages wider knowledge of nutrition and science through personal electronics featuring big data and nutrition.

U.S. analytics company ComScore estimates that by 2020, 50 percent of all online searches will be through voice and smart speakers, and that other voice interface technologies were set to revolutionize the way people interact.

"China's smart speakers and voice interfaces are still in the embryonic stage and it will take cross-sector cooperation to make multi-terminal and multi-scenario services possible," said Fang Lv, vice president with LingLong Technology Company, the joint venture of JD.com and Iflytek.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/09-20/274286.shtml