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You may opt-out by clicking (BUTTON) here * Billionaires + All Billionaires + World's Billionaires + Forbes 400 + America's Richest Self-Made Women + China's Richest + India's Richest + Indonesia's Richest + Korea's Richest + Thailand's Richest + Japan's Richest + Australia's Richest + Taiwan's Richest + Singapore's Richest + Philippines' Richest + Hong Kong's Richest + Malaysia's Richest * Innovation + All Innovation + AI & Big Data + AppDynamics BrandVoice + Cloud 100 2018 + Consumer Tech + Cybersecurity + Enterprise & Cloud + Games + Green Tech + Healthcare + Science + Sharing Economy + Social Media + Venture Capital + Japan BrandVoice + NVIDIA BrandVoice + Oracle BrandVoice + SAP BrandVoice + ServiceNow BrandVoice + Smartsheet BrandVoice + CIO Network * Leadership + All Leadership + Careers + CMO Network + Diversity & Inclusion + Education + Entrepreneurs + ForbesWomen + Franchises + Leadership Strategy + Small Business + Under 30 + Deloitte Brandvoice + Workday BrandVoice * Money + All Money + Banking & Insurance + Crypto & Blockchain + ETFs & Mutual Funds + Fintech + Hedge Funds & Private Equity + Investing + Markets + Personal Finance + Retirement + Taxes + Capital One BrandVoice + Impact Partners BrandVoice + Wealth Management * Consumer + All Consumer + Food & Drink + Hollywood & Entertainment + Media + Real Estate + Retail + SportsMoney * Industry + All Industry + Aerospace & Defense + Energy + Manufacturing + Policy + Transportation + Mitsubishi Heavy Industries BrandVoice * Lifestyle + All Lifestyle + Arts + ForbesLife + Vices + Boats & Planes + Watches & Jewelry + Cars & Bikes + Travel + Forbes Travel Guide + Dining & Drinking + Cole Haan BrandVoice * Featured + 30 Under 30 2019 + 1850 Brand Coffee BrandVoice: Bold Moves + Citizens Access BrandVoice: Money Myths: Debunked + Drexel University BrandVoice: Relevance Rules + Forbes 400 + Forbes Editors' Picks + Forbes Insights: AI + Forbes Insights: AI: A CXO Strategy Guide + Forbes Video + Pivotal Moments: The Making Of A Small Giant * BrandVoice + AppDynamics + Capital One + Cole Haan + Deloitte + Impact Partners + Japan + Mitsubishi Heavy Industries + NVIDIA + Oracle + SAP + ServiceNow + Smartsheet + Workday * Lists Oct 4, 2018, 11:14am How Does The Artificial Intelligence Scene In China Compare To The United States? Quora Quora Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Consumer Tech * (BUTTON) Share to facebook * (BUTTON) Share to twitter * (BUTTON) Share to linkedin Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg What is the AI scene like in China compared to the U.S.? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of 创新工场, former President of Google China and Author of AI Superpowers, on Quora: A major difference between US AI and China AI is that China AI is all about implementation. In research, US has about 60% of the world’s top 1000 top researchers, and China less than 10%. The top US researchers are both academia and industry, while the top Chinese researchers are generally in the industry, while academia lags behind the US substantially. Chinese research papers have increased in quality rapidly over the years, but it will take a long time to catch up with the US. (For more details on this, see my book AI Superpowers.) Deep learning is the single greatest invention so far in the Era of Discovery, which was led by the US, but since the deep learning breakthrough, we’ve already entered the Era of Implementation where what matters is execution, product quality, speed, and data. And that’s where China comes in. China’s technological execution is built on incredible work ethic. Nearly abandoning my wife in the delivery room is nothing compared to the entrepreneurs in China. As a venture capitalist in China, I once saw a startup claim that it offered great work-life balance because it was “996”. What’s 996? 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Most other startups in China are 997. Chinese product quality has improved dramatically due to intense competition. Silicon Valley competition resembles the old wars where each side takes its turn to fire. In China, competition is like gladiators in the coliseum, fighting to the death with no holds barred. Fierce competition pushes entrepreneurs to improve the product at lightning speed, and to develop impregnable business models. As a result, Wechat and Weibo have evolved into arguably better products than products from Facebook and Twitter. The Chinese market rapidly embraces new products and new paradigms. Just within the last 3 years, mobile payments have emerged as the dominant transaction tool, replacing cash and credit cards. Total transactions in 2017 were $18.8 trillion, even larger than China’s GDP. How’s that possible? China’s mobile payments are built on the world’s best infrastructure: nearly zero-transaction-fee, micropayment-capable, and peer-to-peer. Over 700 million Chinese users can pay each other, whether for online, offline, loan, or gift, whether to your child, a farmer in a village, or even a beggar. All of this is amplified by China’s enormous market size, which generates the treasure trove of data which is the critical rocket fuel for AI. China’s data edge is 3 times the US based on mobile users ratio, 10 times the US in food delivery, 50 times in mobile payment, and 300 times in shared bicycle rides. (The few paragraphs above come from my TED talk this year.) All this rich data is used to make Chinese companies’ AI work better. Today, China has the world’s most valuable companies in computer vision, drones, speech recognition, speech synthesis, and machine translation. The total valuation of Chinese computer vision companies is about $10B, and the total valuation of Chinese speech recognition companies is also about $10B. Internet is an area where AI giants blossomed. The same is true for US and China. For US: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft. For China: Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu. These seven companies have a disproportionate share of AI people (in particular Google has the most). China has a number of industrial AI opportunities in “late mover advantage”, that is when the industry lags in the US, AI can make a big difference. We’ve seen this in payments, and will soon see it in retail, healthcare, and education (for AI & education, watch the upcoming 60 Minutes). So, not unexpectedly, in VC funding, China has 48% of the world’s funding, while US 38%. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: * Artificial Intelligence: What kinds of jobs will be vulnerable to displacement due to AI, and how soon will it happen? * China: Does China have the ability to catch up to the U.S. in AI development? * Silicon Valley: Are there similarities between China's work culture and the one in Silicon Valley? Quora: The best answer to any question. * Print * Site Feedback * Tips * Corrections * Reprints & Permissions * Terms * Privacy * ©2019 Forbes Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. * AdChoices