Yang Mei

yangmei_szdaily@163.com

THE latest achievements in artificial intelligence (AI), which is the focus of the ongoing 19th China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF), are being showcased at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center.

Four AI experts were invited to the CHTF to provide the public with a deeper look at AI and to share their views about the status quo and developmental trends of AI on Nov. 18.

Dong Zhenjiang, vice president of ZTE Corp. and president of Shenzhen Artificial Intelligence Industry Association, started the sharing session by saying that the AI boom would not be possible without easy access to massive amounts of data and the improvement of computing capabilities. He pointed out that currently AI has proven to be most successful in visual and audio recognition.

From Dong’s perspective, AI should be applied to a specific field or sector to suit rigid needs so that it can be sustainable. “We cannot only focus on developing AI technology; the important thing is to make it useful,” Dong said.

Peng Jinzhan, co-founder of UISEE Technologies Beijing Co. Ltd. and a specialist in intelligent driving, agreed with Dong’s view that the application of AI is important.

“If a technology is only developed in labs, it will never become sophisticated. Only if AI is truly applied can it be trained and improved, which explains the reason why Google is a leader in unmanned driving,” Peng said.

Wang Xiaoyu, chief scientist with Intellifusion Technology Ltd., shared how AI technology can be employed to help police crack criminal cases.

“It requires so much time and effort for police to spot a suspect on surveillance videos. With AI technology, we can locate the suspect within hundreds of millions of data if we have a picture of the suspect,” said Wang.

Zhang Yang, another specialist in unmanned driving, believes that speech recognition and picture processing will play important roles in unmanned driving in the future.

Faced with a shortage of AI talents, Dong said that China is planning to list AI as a first level discipline and aims to set up 100 AI schools in universities across the country in the next few years. “In the short term, we will face a short supply of AI talents, but I believe that where there is demand, there must be talents,” Dong said.