BOSTON, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past four years, Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startups have received $6.1 billion in funding. However, despite immense amounts of investment and being second only to the U.S. in number of companies focusing on AI, China is not leading in cutting-edge AI innovation. To better understand the progress of AI in China, the team at Lux Research, a leading provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services for technology innovation, took a deep dive into China's AI patents, research papers, venture capital (VC) funding, and other innovation data in their new report, "Will China Take Over the Global AI Industry?"

VC Investment in China AI Companies

The new report analyzes the total number of AI-related VC funding, patents, and research papers in five major AI technology areas: fundamental AI, natural language processing (NLP), voice recognition, computer vision, and AI processors and edge computing.

"On the surface, all innovation-related data indicate that China is poised to take over the world. Diving deeper, we find that all the hype around AI in China is warranted; however, it only highlights a few platform technologies and market segments," said Jerrold Wang, Analyst at Lux Research and lead author of the report.

Chinese AI startups received $6.1 billion in VC funding over the past four years – almost 70% more than their U.S. counterparts, which raised $3.6 billion during the same period. The numbers dwarfed the amount of VC funding in other Asian countries, such as Japan, India, and South Korea. Although funding data make China appear to be a global leader in AI, the funding raised by Chinese AI startups is significantly concentrated in the technologies of computer vision and natural language processing.

Additionally, "China has published more AI-related patents and papers than any other country in the world." Wang noted that although China leads in volume of patents and papers, deeper analysis indicates that it is still not leading the world when it comes to developing truly innovative technologies.

Having focused only on technologies like computer vision, voice recognition, and NLP, as well as only a few market segments, such as finance, retail, and government, Chinese companies have seen rapid business growth in the domestic market, but they are having difficulty entering into the Western market.

Wang goes on to explain that "Chinese AI companies will struggle to penetrate U.S. and European markets because they lack clear technology advantage over the leading local peers and their expertise in covering some Chinese market segments cannot be leveraged to cover the foreign market

Lux's "Will China Take Over the Global AI Industry?" report provides in-depth data and insights that uncover China's strengths and weaknesses as related to AI, including findings and opportunities by market and type of company.

About Lux Research

Lux Research is a leading provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services, helping clients drive growth through technology innovation. A pioneer in the research industry, Lux uniquely combines technical expertise and business insights with a proprietary intelligence platform, using advanced analytics and data science to surface true leading indicators. With quality data derived from primary research, fact-based analysis, and opinions that challenge traditional thinking, Lux empowers clients to make more informed decisions today to ensure future success.

For more information, visit www.luxresearchinc.com, read our blog, connect on LinkedIn, or follow @LuxResearch.

SOURCE Lux Research

Related Link http://www.luxresearchinc.com

https://www.luxresearchinc.com/blog/chinas-booming-ai-industry-what-you-need-to-know

CHINA'S BOOMING AI INDUSTRY: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Shriram Ramanathan, Ph.D., Senior Analyst

China has already grabbed the number one spot in many areas related to the digital economy. It has the world’s largest number of internet users, is the world’s largest purchaser of semiconductor products and industrial robots, and boasts the largest market in mobile payments and Internet of Things (IoT) market. China has its sights set on being a leader in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Not only is China gearing up to lead innovation in fundamental AI technologies but is also rapidly implementing AI in the marketplace. Clearly, this offers significant opportunities as well as poses challenges for Lux clients.

While the U.S. continues to remain the global leader in AI, China has quickly risen to second place and is ready to make a case for first. China’s rapid growth in AI can be traced back to a sharp rise in publications and patent filings a few years back. Today, China exceeds the US in the number of AI publications and patents filled. However, China’s strong momentum in AI is not limited to patents and R&D. In June of 2018, China had the second largest number of AI companies in the world-nearly half that of the number of startups in the U.S. but significantly more than the U.K. and Canada, which are in the third and fourth place respectively.

Chinese startups raised more total VC dollars at much higher valuations compared to U.S. startups in 2017. A recent Brookings Institute survey found that an equal number of people believe that, in the next 10 years, China is as likely as the U.S. to become the leader in AI.

China is positioned better than most countries in establishing itself as the world leader in AI for several reasons:

1. China’s rapid rise in artificial intelligence has been largely driven by its government’s ambition to become the global leader in AI. To achieve this goal, the Chinese government has adopted a series of policies to support the development and adoption of AI. The two most important policies include the “Next Generation AI Development Plan,” which established China’s roadmap to achieve global AI leadership by 2030, and the “AI Three-Year Action Plan 2018-2020,” that outlines the country’s 2020 AI development goals. These policies have worked in boosting the innovation and commercialization of AI technologies. More importantly, the Chinese government has successfully put these policies and associated funding into place by establishing science parks, development zones, and incubators. The government is also playing an active role in providing financial support (at least for the first several years) as well as access to investors and potential partners for startups.

2. China’s population of more than a billion people, coupled with lax data privacy regulations, offers an unlimited source of data for AI algorithms, which become increasingly better as more data is fed into them.

3. China’s “big brother” policies (which is also passively accepted by the citizens) have enabled the government to rapidly adopt AI technologies for applications such as traffic management, people tracking, and public security thereby accelerating the commercialization of AI technologies; now, many of these AI technologies have also started percolating other spheres such as social and economic welfare, and education.

4. More recently, the Chinese government, realizing that data is the new oil, has adopted stringent regulations surrounding export of data and analytics.

Thus, Chinese AI companies have the advantage of being able to reach high levels of fundraising and market adoption much faster than their foreign counterparts as can be seen from examples of SenseTime and eyeSight Mobile Technologies.

Many clients may be experiencing déjà vu; a few decades back, China successfully copied manufacturing technologies from companies in the western hemisphere and, using low-cost labor, was able to manufacture goods at much lower prices compared to western nations. This forced many U.S. and European companies to move their manufacturing to China and, in some cases, disrupted markets (see electronics markets for example). Nevertheless, the U.S. and European companies continued to remain centers of revenue and profits as the global demand for products was largely concentrated in the western hemisphere and these companies had developed strong unbreakable relationships with their customers over centuries.

However, we at Lux believe that this time is different. China is eager to shed its copycat/technology follower image; the country wants to be an innovation leader and is targeting global growth and dominance in AI. This is clearly reflected in the top-down approach that the government has adopted with regards to driving innovation and commercialization of AI technologies. It is also important to note that AI and big data technologies are unique because of their scalability and stickiness (see report “Strategies to monetize data”). One doesn’t have to look beyond companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google to understand the power of scalability and stickiness; these companies have managed to establish themselves as global behemoths within a span of about two decades.