Horizon is often seen as potentially becoming China’s equivalent of NVIDIA. The company is founded by Dr Kai Yu, a prominent industry figure with quite the credentials.

Yu led Baidu’s AI Research lab for three years, founded the Baidu Institute of Deep Learning, and launched the company’s autonomous driving business unit.

Furthermore, Yu has taught at Stanford University, published over 60 papers, and even won first place in the ImageNet challenge which evaluates algorithms for object detection and image classification.

China is yet to produce a chipset firm which can match the capabilities of Western equivalents.

With increasing US sanctions making it more difficult for Chinese firms to access American semiconductors, a number of homegrown companies are emerging and gaining attention from investors.

Horizon is just five-years-old and specialises in making AI chips for robots and autonomous vehicles. The company has already attracted significant funding.

Around two years ago, Horizon completed a $600 million funding round with a $3 billion valuation. The company has secured $150 million so far as part of this latest round.

While it’s likely the incoming Biden administration in the US will take a less strict approach to trade with China, it seems Beijing wants to build more homegrown alternatives which can match or surpass Western counterparts.

Chinese tech giants like Huawei are investing significant resources in their chip manufacturing capabilities to ensure the country has the tech it needs to power groundbreaking advancements like self-driving cars.

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PAI is a US-led alliance which aims to foster the ethical development and deployment of AI technologies. Baidu was the only Chinese member.

The loss of Baidu’s expertise and any representation from China is devastating for PAI. Ethical AI development requires global cooperation to set acceptable standards which help to ensure safety while not limiting innovation.

Baidu has officially cited financial pressures for its decision to exit the alliance.

In a statement, Baidu wrote:

“Baidu shares the vision of the Partnership on AI and is committed to promoting the ethical development of AI technologies. 

We are in discussions about renewing our membership, and remain open to other opportunities to collaborate with industry peers on advancing AI.”

Directors from PAI hope to see Baidu renew its membership to the alliance next year.

Cooperation between American and Chinese firms

Cooperation between American and Chinese firms is getting more difficult as the world’s largest economies continue to implement sanctions on each other.

The US has criticised China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, trade practices, its mass imprisonment and alleged torture of Uyghur Muslims in “re-education” camps, and breaking the semi-autonomy of Hong Kong.

In the tech world, much of the focus has been on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei – which the US accuses of being a national security threat. Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou last year on allegations of using the company’s subsidiaries to flout US sanctions against Iran. Two Canadian businessmen that were arrested in China shortly after Meng’s detention, in a suspected retaliation, were charged with spying by Beijing this week.

An increasing number of Chinese companies, including Huawei, have found themselves being added to an ‘Entity List’ in the US which bans American companies from working with them without explicit permission from the government.

The US added six Chinese AI companies to its Entity List last October, citing their role in alleged human rights violations.

Earlier this week, the US Commerce Department made an exception to Huawei’s inclusion on the Entity List which allows US companies to work with the Chinese giant for the purposes of developing 5G standards. Hopefully, we can see the same being done for AI companies.

However, on the whole, cooperation between American and Chinese firms is getting more difficult as a result of the political climate. It wouldn’t be surprising to see more cases of companies like Baidu dropping out of well-intentioned alliances such as PAI if sensible resolutions to differences are not sought.

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South China Morning Post reports that Shanghai is testing facial recognition terminals in pharmacies that will verify a person’s identity prior to dispensing controlled substances.

Some legal medications can be turned into banned drugs. Cold and allergy medications, for example, often contain ephedrine which is a key component of crystal meth.

Any prescription medication containing ephedrine, psychotropic substances, and/or tranquilisers will be subject to the facial recognition check. Both patients and pharmacists will be checked to prevent any collusion.

China, along with many other countries, is facing an increasing problem with people buying legal medicines in large quantities that can be converted into recreational drugs for selling on the black market. The use of facial recognition is a novel, albeit controversial, method of combating the issue.

The facial recognition terminals have been in testing since November and adopted by 31 healthcare organisations across seven districts so far. Full coverage of Shanghai’s medical premises is expected by the first half of 2021.

Facial recognition is quickly becoming the norm in every part of life in China. The technology is being used to catch and shame jaywalkers, identify criminals, subway rides, and more.

iiMedia Research found that around 118 million people in China signed up for facial recognition-powered payments in 2019, compared to just 61 million in 2018. The report shows how facial recognition is becoming more widely accepted in China.

Many other nations, particularly in the West, are more wary of mass facial recognition deployments. For example, a recent EU document suggested a time-limited ban on the use of facial recognition technology in public spaces of between three to five years to assess the “impacts of this technology and possible risk management measures.”

It’s hard to imagine such initiatives being deployed in such countries without significant outcry but Shanghai’s latest implementation is at least showing how the technology can be used to tackle serious problems like illegal drug sales.

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According to figures published by ABI Research, the United States received 52.3 percent of global AI investments in 2018.

In 2018, investments in US-based AI technologies reached a total of $9.7 billion. This represents a staggering 120 percent year-on-year growth.

Huge AI investments from companies such as Zoox, Cruise Automation, Zymergen, and Dataminr helped to propel the US back into the number one spot.

The gap between the US and China is only expected to increase based on investment figures this year. ABI Research expects the US to reach a 70 percent share of global AI investments.

Lian Jye Su, Principal Analyst at ABI Research, said: 

“The United States is reaping the rewards from its diversified AI investment strategy. 

Top AI startups in the United States come from various sectors, including self-driving cars, industrial manufacturing, robotics process automation, data analytics, and cybersecurity.

All these startups research on and invest in cutting edge deep learning technologies in their solutions, democratising AI for enterprises and end consumers.”

China also continues to see healthy growth in its AI sector. Year-on-year it’s grown 54 percent to reach a total of $7.4 billion.

Beijing itself has doubled-down on its ambitions to be a world leader in AI. The country’s rollout of the largest commercially-available 5G network in the world today will help to support this endeavour.

China has many established AI leaders, such as SenseTime and CloudWalk. The former is the world’s most funded AI startup and has a valuation of more than $4.5 billion, in part due to its provision of surveillance services to Beijing.

SenseTime’s Viper system aims to process and analyse over 100,000 simultaneous real-time streams from traffic cameras, ATMs, and more to automatically tag and keep track of individuals.

ABI Research predicts China will continue to witness growth but will suffer from “strong headwinds” due to the ongoing trade war with the US. The researchers believe attempts by the Americans to reduce Chinese firms’ access to US tech has slowed AI advancements in China.

“There is no doubt that Chinese AI investment is feeling the pinch of reality, but China is still undeniably the largest single market for AI implementation,” comments Su.

“Favourable policies and flexible regulations in China, backed by a government willing to invest and deploy innovative technologies at scale, will certainly amplify AI adoption in the region.”

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This year, Baidu’s stock price has dropped 36 percent. Li used the Game of Thrones phrase that “winter is coming” following a first-quarter loss.

Baidu has since not only been asking employees to fly economy rather than business, and not to stay in five-star hotels, but even to reduce the number of paper towels and cups they’re using in the office.

AI is expected to open up new revenue avenues for Baidu amid slowing growth in its traditional search business. Li said he’s an “optimist” when it comes to AI’s ability to make lives better.

Li was speaking at the plenary session of the sixth World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang province.

During the conference, Li made a rather bold prediction:

“Artificial intelligence will not destroy human beings but will give people eternal life. Everything every person has said and done, even people’s memories, emotions and consciousness, can be digitally stored on network disks or the cloud.

Machines can learn people’s way of thinking. When there are new problems, people can talk to future generations across time and space via technology.”

Baidu, or any other company, is likely some way off from achieving Li’s prediction – but it’s a fascinating insight about AI’s potential direction from a tech leader nonetheless.

Self-driving cars, particularly robotaxis, is one area where Baidu is investing heavily. Last month, the company launched public trials in the Hunan province consisting of 45 autonomous taxis.

Li highlights that self-driving vehicles don’t just provide an opportunity itself but also has a knock-on effect of requiring “urban transport infrastructure, especially the software, to be updated.”

Baidu is also expanding its influence and sharing its AI expertise globally.

In July, AI News reported that Baidu will help develop Intel’s Nervana neural processor. The increasing scrutiny from the US over Chinese influence in Western companies and infrastructure, leading to an increasing number of Chinese firms being added to an ‘entity list’, may reduce such collaborations.

China’s growth and influence is hard to ignore, especially in AI. China’s State Council released a roadmap two years ago aimed at making the country a global AI leader by 2030 as it ramps up competition with the US.

With the full backing of the Chinese government, it’s understandable why Li continues to be bullish about Baidu’s AI investments.

(Image Credit: Fortune Global Forum 2013 by Stefen Chow/Fortune Global Forum under CC BY-ND 2.0 license)

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28 Chinese firms have been added (PDF) to the “entity list” of the US government which prohibits American companies from continuing any links with them.

The US government said the firms were blacklisted for playing a role in the “implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups” in the Xinjiang province.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of persecuting the mostly Muslim Uighurs in detention camps. China is calling the camps ‘vocational training centres’ designed to combat extremism. As of last year, more than two million Uyghurs and Muslim minorities have been thrown into the camps, made to memorise Communist Party propaganda, and even renounce their religion.

The companies added to the US’ list include some notable firms such as Hikvision and Dahua Technology, two of the world’s largest suppliers of video surveillance technologies. Both of the companies have global R&D centres including in cities like London and Montreal.

However, the biggest addition to the list is SenseTime. The company is the world’s most-funded AI startup and is renowned for powerful facial recognition systems which are used by the Chinese government for mass surveillance.

SenseTime’s Viper system aims to process and analyse over 100,000 simultaneous real-time streams from traffic cameras, ATMs, and more to automatically tag and keep track of individuals.

While a mass surveillance system on such a scale has naturally gained the attention of civil rights campaigners, SenseTime itself has been vocal about the need for facial recognition standards to be established for a ‘healthier’ industry.

China is undoubtedly a pioneer in AI, partly due to its large-scale data collection providing large sets for training algorithms. The US may also be limiting some of its own companies by severing trade relations with some of China’s tech companies, but many will welcome the added pressure it places on Beijing to improve their human rights record.

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The country’s surveillance network is often scrutinised for being invasive, but the ability to detect potentially vulnerable people helps to shift the perception that it primarily benefits the government.

Public data suggests around 500,000 elderly people get lost each year, the equivalent of around 1,370 per day. About 72 percent of the missing persons were reported mentally challenged, requiring extra policing effort to identify them and ensure they get home safe.

China is home to many pioneering facial recognition companies. SenseTime became the world’s most funded AI startup in April last year, and launched another $2 billion funding round in January.

Part of the attraction for investors in SenseTime is due to providing technology for the Chinese government’s vast surveillance network. SenseTime’s so-called Viper system aims to process and analyse over 100,000 simultaneous real-time streams from traffic cameras, ATMs, and more to automatically tag and keep track of individuals.

SenseTime claims to have experienced around 400 percent growth in recent years, evidence of the appetite for facial recognition technology.

Despite being such a major player in facial recognition technology, SenseTime CEO Xu Li has called for facial recognition standards to be established for a ‘healthier’ industry.

Public distrust in facial recognition systems remains high. Earlier this year, AI News reported on the findings of the American Civil Liberties Union which found Amazon’s facial recognition AI erroneously labelled those with darker skin colours as criminals more often when matching against mugshots.

A later report from the Algorithmic Justice League tested facial recognition algorithms from Microsoft, Face++, and IBM. All of the algorithms tested struggled most with darker-skinned females, with as low as just 65.3 percent accuracy.

Following the findings, IBM said it would improve its algorithm. When reassessed, IBM’s accuracy for darken-skinned females jumped from 65.3 percent to 83.5 percent.

Algorithmic Justice League founder Joy Buolamwini said: “So for everybody who watched my TED Talk and said: ‘Isn’t the reason you weren’t detected because of, you know, physics? Your skin reflectance, contrast, et cetera,’ — the laws of physics did not change between December 2017, when I did the study, and 2018, when they launched the new results.”

“What did change is they made it a priority.”

In June, Face++ introduced a smart city AI called Wisdom Community in the Haidian district of Beijing. Wisdom Community also helps to detect and track down elderly persons who had been reported missing.

Face++’s technology has already been assisting with missing person cases elsewhere in the country. In October last year, a man in his 70s with Alzheimer’s disease was identified at Changle Middle Road Police Station in Xincheng District, Xi’an and sent home in less than a hour.

While there are still huge concerns around facial recognition things such as accuracy and privacy invasion, the use of the technology by the Chinese police to help find vulnerable people shows a positive use case that could save lives and reunite families.

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The constellation will be 192-strong and called ‘Xingshidai’ reports China Central Television.

China intends to use the satellites for environmental monitoring, disaster prevention, and traffic management. AI will help to process images to avoid sending poor quality pictures back to Earth.

Xingshidai satellites will likely use China’s Julang-1 booster rockets to reach orbit. Julang-1 can put satellites weighing up to 150kg (330lbs) into orbit at an altitude of 372 miles (600 kilometres).

The launch of a Julong-1 is estimated to cost around 25 million yuan (£2.87million).

Project manager Wang Long told China’s Global Times newspaper yesterday:

“The coordinated smart system will independently analyse the data it obtains rapidly and decide what data should be sent back to the ground, or what orders it should carry out for the next step.

This could shorten the time that would otherwise be needed to receive orders from the ground for every little move.”

China’s aerospace industry is growing fast. In January, the nation reported successfully landing a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon. Last month, China successfully launched its Chang Zheng 11 carrier rocket with seven spacecraft on board from a floating launch platform. Next year, the country plans to launch its Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover.

The application of AI to China’s aerospace initiatives has enormous potential. However, some experts believe China needs to advance its capabilities in areas such as computer chips, radar, and optical devices to fully realise its vision.

Xingshidai’s satellites are being developed by ADASpace, a private Chinese company based in Chengdu.

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Dr Ling Ge, Chief European Representative at Tencent, said:

“The UK is a global leader in AI and is increasingly becoming a focus for companies looking to invest in the sector. PROWLER.io’s data-efficient approach and focus on human-machine teaming really set it apart.

We are looking forward to PROWLER.io applying its AI decision platform to a broadening range of customers, potentially including some of Tencent’s affiliate companies.”  

Prowler was founded in 2016 by engineers and mathematicians from Cambridge University. The startup aims to be an ‘AI platform for decision-making in a complex, dynamic, and uncertain world.’

Vishal Chatrath, CEO of Prowler.io, commented:

“Having initially focused on developing our AI platform, we are excited to be expanding our product offering into new verticals, underscoring the flexibility and innovative nature of our core technology.

We’re excited to be supporting global corporate and financial leaders like Mandatum Life, Pearson, RB Capital and Tencent with AI tools that enable people to make better decisions.”

Prowler.io launched its AI platform focusing on things such as managing supply chains and making decisions about financial portfolios. The company is now hoping to expand into new areas.

Lauri Vaittinen, SVP at Mandatum Life, a Prowler.io investor, added:

“Prowler.io is on its way to becoming a true enterprise AI platform — successfully expanding from its initial focus on financial services and logistics to apply its core AI technology to multiple adjacent market segments.

We are confident that the strategic partners, alongside the existing funding support, will help the company accelerate practical implementations – including hiring more engineering talent, operational managers, and reinforce the product development expertise.”

Founded in 2016, Prowler.io currently has 110 employees from 29 countries.

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Feige had just finished giving a talk entitled ‘Fairness in AI: Latest developments in AI safety’ at this year’s AI Expo Global. We managed to grab him to get more of his thoughts on the issue.

Rightfully, people are becoming increasingly concerned about unfair and unsafe AIs. Human biases are seeping into algorithms which poses a very real danger that prejudices and oppression could become automated by accident.

AI News reported last week on research from New York University that found inequality in STEM-based careers is causing algorithms to work better or worse for some parts of society over others.

Similar findings, by Joy Buolamwini and her team from the Algorithmic Justice League, highlighted a disparity in the effectiveness of the world’s leading facial recognition systems between genders and skin tones.

In an ideal world, all parts of society would be equally represented tomorrow. The reality is that issue is going to take much longer to rectify, but AI technologies are becoming increasingly used across society today.

AI News asked Feige for his perspective and how the impact of that problem can be reduced much sooner.

“I think the most important thing for organisations to do is to spend more time thinking about bias and on ensuring that every model they build is unbiased because a demographically disparate team can build non-disparate tech.”

Some companies are seeking to build AIs which can scan for bias in other algorithms. We asked Feige for his view on whether he believes this is an ideal solution.

“Definitely, I showed one in my talk. We have tests for: You give me a black box algorithm, I have no idea what your algorithm does – but I can give an input, calculate the output, and I can just tell you how biased it is according to various definitions of bias.”

“We can go even further and say: Let’s modify your algorithm and give it back so it’s unbiased according to one of those definitions.”

In the Western world, we consider ourselves fairly liberal and protective of individual freedoms. China, potentially the world’s leader in AI, has a questionable human rights record and is known for invasive surveillance and mass data collection. Meanwhile, Russia has a reputation for military aggression which some are concerned will drive its AI developments. Much of the Middle East, while not considered leaders in AI, is behind most of the world in areas such as female and gay rights.

We asked Feige for his thoughts on whether these regional attitudes could find their way into AI developments.

“It’s an interesting question. It’s not that some regions will take the issue more or less seriously, they just have different … we’ll say preferences. I suspect China takes surveillance and facial recognition seriously – more seriously than the UK – but they do so in order to leverage it for mass surveillance, for population control.”

“The UK is trying to walk a fine line in efficiently using that very useful technology but not undermine personal privacy and freedom of individuals.”

During his talk, Feige made the point that he’s less concerned about AI biases due to the fact that – unlike humans – algorithms can be controlled.

“This is a real source of optimism for me, just because human decision-making is incredibly biased and everyone knows that.”

Feige asked the audience to raise a hand if they were concerned about AI bias which prompted around half to do so. The same question was asked regarding human bias and most of the room had their hand up.

“You can be precise with machine learning algorithms. You can say: ‘This is the objective I’m trying to achieve, I’m trying to maximise the probability of a candidate being successful at their job according to historical people in their role’. Or, you can be precise about the data the model is trained on and say: ‘I’m going to ignore data from before this time period because things were ‘different’ back then’”.

“Humans have fixed past experiences they can’t control. I can’t change the fact my mum did most of the cooking when I was growing up and I don’t know how it affects my decision-making.”

“I also can’t force myself to hire based on success in their jobs, which I try to do. It’s hard to know if really I just had a good conversation about the football with the candidate.”

Faculty, of which Feige has the role of head of research, is a European company based in London. With the EU Commission recently publishing its guidelines on AI development, we took the opportunity to get his views on them.

“At a high-level, I think they’re great. They align quite a bit with how we think about these things. My biggest wish, whenever a body like that puts together some principles, is that there’s a big gap between that level of guidelines and what is useful for practitioners. Making those more precise is really important and those weren’t precise enough by my standards.”

“But not to just advocate putting the responsibility on policymakers. There’s also an onus on practitioners to try and articulate what bias looks like statistically and how that may apply to different problems, and then say: ‘Ok policy body, which of these is most relevant and can you now make those statements in this language’ and basically bridge the gap.”

Google recently created, then axed, a dedicated ‘ethics board’ for its AI developments. Such boards seem a good idea but representing society can be a minefield. Google’s faced criticism for having a conservative figure with strong anti-LGBTQ and immigrant views on the board.

Feige provided his take on whether companies should have an independent AI oversight board to ensure their developments are safe and ethical.

“To some degree, definitely. I suspect there are some cases you want that oversight board to be very external and like a regulator with a lot of overhead and a lot of teeth.”

“At Faculty, each one of our product teams has a shadow team – which has practically the same skill set – who monitor and oversee the work done by the project team to ensure it follows our internal set of values and guidelines.”

“I think the fundamental question here is how to do this in a productive way and ensure AI safety but that it doesn’t grind innovation to a halt. You can imagine where the UK has a really strong oversight stance and then some other country with much less regulatory oversight has companies which become large multinationals and operate in the UK anyway.”

Getting the balance right around regulation is difficult. Our sister publication IoT News interviewed a digital lawyer who raised the concern that Europe’s strict GDPR regulations will cause AI companies in the continent to fall behind their counterparts in Asia and America which have access to far more data.

Feige believes there is the danger of this happening, but European countries like the UK – whether it ultimately remains part of the EU and subject to regulations like GDPR or not – can use it as an opportunity to lead in AI safety.

Three reasons are provided why the UK could achieve this:

1. The UK has significant AI talent and renowned universities.
2. It has a fairly unobjectionable record and respected government (Feige clarifies in comparison to how some countries view the US and China).
3. The UK has a fairly robust existing regulatory infrastructure – especially in areas such as financial services.

Among the biggest concerns about AI continues to be around its impact on the workforce, particularly whether it will replace low-skilled workers. We wanted to know whether using legislation to protect human workers is a good idea.

“You could ask the question a hundred years ago: ‘Should automation come into agriculture because 90 percent of the population works in it?’ and now it’s almost all automated. I suspect individuals may be hurt by automation but their children will be better off by it.”

“I think any heavy-handed regulation will have unintended consequences and should be thought about well.”

Our discussion with Feige was insightful and provided optimism that AI can be developed safely and fairly, as long as there’s a will to do so.

You can watch our full interview with Feige from AI Expo Global 2019 below:

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