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Current Developments of AI in China.

China has emerged as a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), making significant advancements in recent years. With a combination of government support, research institutions, and thriving tech companies, China has positioned itself at the forefront of AI innovation. This article examines the current developments in AI in China, highlighting key areas of focus, achievements, and challenges.

Government Support and Strategic Planning:

The Chinese government has recognized the potential of AI and its transformative impact on various sectors, including healthcare, transportation, finance, and manufacturing. In 2017, China released its "Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan," outlining a roadmap for becoming a world leader in AI by 2030. The plan includes ambitious targets, such as building world-class AI innovation hubs, cultivating top talent, and enhancing data availability for AI research and development.

Investment in Research and Development:

China has significantly increased its investment in AI research and development. Major Chinese tech companies, such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, have established their own AI research labs and are actively involved in cutting-edge research. The government has also set up national-level AI research centers and funds to support AI-related projects. These investments have fueled breakthroughs in various AI subfields, including machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics.

Advancements in Facial Recognition and Surveillance Systems:

China has made notable strides in facial recognition technology, leading to the widespread deployment of surveillance systems across the country. Companies like Megvii, SenseTime, and Dahua Technology have developed advanced facial recognition algorithms that can identify individuals with high accuracy. Facial recognition technology is being used for various applications, including public security, access control, and personalized marketing. However, concerns have been raised regarding privacy and the potential for misuse of such technologies.

AI in Healthcare:

China is leveraging AI to revolutionize its healthcare sector. AI-powered medical imaging systems are being used to assist doctors in diagnosing diseases, interpreting medical images, and detecting early-stage cancers. Companies like Ping An Good Doctor and iFlytek are developing AI chatbots that can provide preliminary medical advice based on symptom analysis. Moreover, AI algorithms are being applied to analyze vast amounts of medical data to identify patterns and improve treatment outcomes.

Autonomous Vehicles and Smart Transportation:

China is actively developing autonomous vehicle technology and aims to become a global leader in the field. Companies like Baidu, Pony.ai, and WeRide are conducting extensive research and development on self-driving cars. China's large population and diverse transportation challenges provide an ideal testing ground for autonomous vehicles. Additionally, the integration of AI into traffic management systems is enhancing efficiency, reducing congestion, and improving road safety.

AI Ethics and Regulation:

China recognizes the importance of addressing ethical considerations in AI development. The government has issued guidelines and regulations to ensure responsible and transparent AI deployment. Initiatives such as the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Initiative" aim to establish ethical norms, promote AI safety, and address potential risks associated with AI technology. China is also actively participating in global discussions on AI governance and ethics.

Challenges and Future Outlook:

Despite remarkable progress, China faces certain challenges in the development of AI. One major concern is the quality and accessibility of data, as AI algorithms require vast amounts of high-quality data for training and validation. Additionally, attracting and retaining top AI talent is crucial for sustaining growth and innovation. The competition for talent both domestically and internationally poses a significant challenge.

Looking ahead, China's AI development is expected to continue at a rapid pace. The integration of AI into various sectors will bring about increased efficiency, economic growth, and societal benefits. However, it is essential to address ethical concerns, privacy issues, and the potential impact on employment. International collaboration and cooperation will also play a vital role in shaping the future of AI development in China and the global AI landscape.

China has made impressive strides in the development of artificial intelligence, driven by government support, significant investments, and a thriving tech ecosystem. From facial recognition and healthcare to autonomous vehicles and AI ethics, China's progress in AI showcases its determination to lead in this transformative technology. By addressing challenges and embracing responsible AI development, China has the potential to shape the future of AI not only within its borders but also on a global scale.

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China’s first domestically produced...

China’s first domestically produced passenger jet took off on its maiden commercial flight on Sunday, a milestone event in the nation’s decades-long effort to compete with western rivals in the air. Beijing hopes the C919 commercial jetliner will challenge foreign models like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320, though many of its parts are sourced from abroad.

Its first homegrown jetliner with mass commercial potential would also cut the country’s reliance on foreign technology as ties with the West deteriorate.“In the future, most passengers will be able to choose to travel by large, domestically produced aircraft,” state broadcaster CCTV said.

China Eastern Airlines flight MU9191 rose into the skies above Shanghai Hongqiao Airport on Sunday morning, footage from CCTV showed. The plane is carried over 130 passengers, the broadcaster said. Passengers received red boarding passes and enjoyed a sumptuous “themed meal” to commemorate the flight, CCTV reported.

China has invested heavily in the production of the homegrown jet as it seeks to become self-sufficient in key technologies. The aircraft is manufactured by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), but many of its parts – including its engines – are sourced from overseas.

From Monday, the C919 will operate on China Eastern’s regular route between Shanghai and the south-western city of Chengdu, CCTV reported.

The first model of the narrow-body jet, which seats 164 passengers, was formally handed over to China Eastern last year during a ceremony at an airport in Shanghai, hailed by state media as “an important milestone” for the country’s aircraft industry. Zhang Yujin, COMAC’s deputy general manager, told state-backed Shanghai outlet The Paper in January that the company had taken about 1,200 orders for the C919. COMAC planned to increase annual production capacity to 150 models within five years, Zhang said at the time.

Asia – and China in particular – are key targets for both Airbus and its American rival Boeing, which are looking to capitalise on growing demand for air travel from the country’s vast middle class. Last month, Airbus said it would double its production capacity in China, signing a deal to build a second final assembly line for the A320 in Tianjin.

The first assembly site in the northern city opened in 2008 and produces four A320s a month, with Airbus hoping to increase that to six a month before the end of the year.

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Source: The Guardian

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China has built the foundations to posit...

Critical technologies already underpin the global economy and our society. From the energy-efficient microprocessors in smartphones to the security that enables online banking and shopping, these technologies are ubiquitous and essential. They’re unlocking green energy production and supporting medical breakthroughs. They’re also the basis for military capability on the battlefield, are underpinning new hybrid warfare techniques and can give intelligence agencies a major edge over adversaries.

Just a few years ago, a nation could focus its research, resource extraction and manufacturing energies toward its strengths with the assurance that international supply chains would provide the balance of required goods. That world has gone, swept away by Covid-19, geopolitics and changes in global supply chains. Countries have also shown a willingness to withhold supplies of critical materials as a weapon of economic coercion, and an energy crisis is gripping much of the world as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This report, and the Critical Technology Tracker website, fill a global gap by identifying which countries, universities and businesses are leading the effort to progress scientific and research innovation, including breakthroughs, in critical technologies. Database queries identified the relevant set of papers for each technology (2.2 million in total). The top 10% most highly cited research publications from the past five years on each of the 44 technologies were analysed. In addition, our work collecting and analysing data on the flow of researchers between countries at various career stages—undergraduate, postgraduate and employment—identifies brain drains and brain gains in each technology area.

China is further ahead in more areas than has been realised. It’s the leading country in 37 of the 44 technologies evaluated, often producing more than five times as much high-impact research as its closest competitor. This means that only seven of the 44 analysed technologies are currently led by a democratic country, and that country in all instances is the US.

The US maintains its strengths in the design and development of advanced semiconductor devices and leads in the research fields of high performance computing and advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication. It’s also in front in the crucial areas of quantum computing and vaccines (and medical countermeasures). This is consistent with analysis showing that the US holds the most Covid-19 vaccine patents and sits at the centre of this global collaboration network. Medical countermeasures provide protection (and post-exposure management) for military and civilian people against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material by providing rapid field-based diagnostics and therapeutics (such as antiviral medications) in addition to vaccines.

The race to be the next most important technological powerhouse is a close one between the UK and India, both of which claim a place in the top five countries in 29 of the 44 technologies. South Korea and Germany follow closely behind, appearing in the top five countries in 20 and 17 technologies, respectively. Australia is in the top five for nine technologies, followed closely by Italy (seven technologies), Iran (six), Japan (four) and Canada (four). Russia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, France, Malaysia and the Netherlands are in the top five for one or two technologies. A number of other countries, including Spain and Turkey, regularly make the top 10 countries but aren’t in the top five.

As well as tracking which countries are in front, the Critical Technology Tracker highlights which organisations—universities, companies and labs—are leading in which technologies. For example, the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology has supremacy in a number of quantum technologies.

A range of organisations shine through, including the University of California system, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian Institute of Technology, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), the University of Science and Technology China and a variety of national labs in the US (such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a particularly high performer, ranking in the top 5 in 27 of the 44 technologies tracked by the Critical Technology Tracker. Comprising of 116 institutes (which gives it a unique advantage over other organisations) it excels in energy and environment technologies, advanced materials (including critical minerals extraction and processing) and in a range of quantum, defence and AI technologies including advanced data analytics, machine learning, quantum sensors, advanced robotics and small satellites. In addition, US technology companies are well represented in some areas, including in the AI category: Google (1st in natural language processing), Microsoft (6th by H-index and 10th by ‘highly cited’ in natural language processing), Facebook (14th by H-index in natural language processing), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (14th by H-index in high performance computing) and IBM (Switzerland and US arms both tying at the 11th place with other institutions by H-index in AI algorithms and hardware accelerators).

There’s a human dimension to technology development that should also be factored into assessments of technological capability. Innovations are ultimately the result of researchers, scientists and designers with a lifetime of training and experience that led to their breakthroughs. Understanding where those researchers started their professional journeys, where they received the training that equipped them to be leaders in their fields, and finally where they are now as they make their discoveries, paints a picture of how well countries are competing in their ability to attract and retain skilled researchers from the global pool of talent.

Who are the individuals publishing the high-impact research that’s propelled China to an impressive lead? Where did they study and train? In advanced aircraft engines (including hypersonics), in which China is publishing more than four times as much high-impact research as the US (2nd place), there are two key insights. First, the majority (68.6%) of high-impact authors trained at Chinese universities and now work in Chinese research institutions. Second, China is also attracting talent to the workplace from democratic countries: 21.6% of high-impact authors completed their postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country (US = 9.8%, UK = 7.8%, Canada = 3.9%, Australia = none, New Zealand = none), 2% trained in the EU, and 2% trained in Japan. Although not quantified in this work, this is very likely to be a combination of Chinese nationals who went abroad for training and brought their newly acquired expertise back to China, and foreign nationals moving to China to work at a research institution or company.

World-leading research institutes typically also provide training for the next generation of innovators through high-quality undergraduates, masters and PhDs, and employment opportunities in which junior researchers are mentored by experts. As China claims seven of the world’s top 10 research institutions for advanced aircraft engines (including hypersonics), its training system is largely decoupled, as there’s a sufficient critical mass of domestic expertise to train the next generation of top scientists. However, a steady supply of new ideas and techniques is also provided by individuals trained overseas who are attracted to work in Chinese institutions.

A crucial question to ask is whether expertise in high-impact research translates into (sticking with the same example) the manufacture of world-leading jet engines. What of reports of reliability problems experienced with Chinese-manufactured jet engines? The skill set required for leading-edge engine research differs from the expertise, tacit knowledge and human capital needed to manufacture jet engines to extreme reliability requirements. This is an important caveat that readers should keep in mind, and it’s one we point out in multiple places throughout the report. As one external reviewer put it, ‘If you’re good at origami but don’t yet excel at making decent paper, are you really good at origami?’ Naturally, manufacturing capability lags research breakthroughs. However, in the example of jet-engine manufacturing, China appears to be making strides and has recognised the ‘choke-point’ of being entirely reliant on US and Swedish companies for the precision-grade stainless steel required for bearings in high performance aircraft engines. China’s excellent research performance in this area most likely reflects the prioritisation and investment by the CCP to overcome the reliability, and choke-point, hurdles of previous years.

But whether the focus is jet engines or advanced robotics, actualising research performance, no matter how impressive, into major technological gains can be a difficult and complicated step that requires other inputs (in addition to high quality research). However, what ASPI’s new Critical Technology Tracker gives us - beyond datasets showing research performance - are unique insights into strategy, intent and potential future capabilities. It also provides valuable insights into the spread, and concentrations of, global expertise across a range of critical areas.

There are many ways in which countries (governments, businesses and civil society) can use the new datasets available in the Critical Technology Tracker. It can be used to support strategic planning, enable more targeted investment, or facilitate the establishment of new global partnerships (to name just a few possibilities). For example, Australia has one of the world’s biggest lithium reserves and has all the critical minerals for making lithium batteries. As an established leader in photovoltaics technology, Australia has the potential to guarantee its energy security by focusing on electric batteries, critical minerals extraction and processing and photovoltaics technologies while locally capitalising on its onshore critical-minerals resources. As the world’s second largest producer of aluminium, Australia can reduce its greenhouse emissions by using both hydrogen and electricity generated from renewable sources in its aluminium production. Strategic funding in these interconnected critical technology could reduce the current tech monopoly risks revealed by the Critical Technology Tracker and support new tech industries with job creation.

These findings should be a wake-up call for democratic nations. It has become imperative, now more than ever, that political leaders, policymakers, businesses and civil society use empirical open-source data to inform decision-making across different technological areas so that, in the years and decades to come, they can reap the benefits of new policies and investments they must make now. Urgent policy changes, increased investment and global collaboration are required from many countries to close the enormous and widening gap. The costs of catching up will be significant, but the costs of inaction could be far greater.

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Source: Australian Strategic Policy Institute

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Will China Create a New State-Owned...

Since AI has become essential to national interest, China may not be willing to leave its development in the hands of private companies.

With the recent releases of large-language models, such as ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) capability has leapfrogged, attracting intense attention around the globe. Inspired by the success of ChatGPT, many Chinese technology companies, such as Baidu, rushed to announce their own plans for developing a Chinese version of ChatGPT. However, to everyone’s surprise, the Chinese government recently banned tech companies from offering ChatGPT-like services and will potentially impose more regulations on the development of AI.

Since AI has gradually evolved into a foundational part of societal infrastructure essential to national interests, China may create a new state-owned enterprise (SOE) to monopolize AI foundation in China, similar to how SOEs monopolize the energy and telecommunication sectors.

Traditionally, China’s SOEs have controlled industries that are deemed essential to national interest and China’s economy. It has been estimated that the share of SOEs in China’s GDP is at least 23 percent. Particularly, as China is transitioning from an investment-driven export economy to an innovation-driven economy reliant on domestic consumption, the role of SOEs has become increasingly more important, as these state-owned firms are driving China’s economic transition. Furthermore, one study indicated that Chinese SOEs form an integrated system to not only economically benefit the state but also to guarantee that the whole country stays within the state’s control.

Returning to AI, the field is estimated to completely revolutionize the world’s economy with an estimated $15.7 trillion contribution to the global economy by 2030. Along the way, AI will become pervasive in people’s daily lives. Hence, AI will not only impose a significant economic impact but also become essential to the state’s control, satisfying both key factors for the creation of an SOE.

AI has gradually become an essential part of societal infrastructure in recent years. For instance, the Estonian government launched a new AI-based virtual assistant to provide Estonians with a voice-based way to navigate key services provided by the state, such as renewing a passport or applying for benefits. In Finland, a similar AI platform can offer medical services to help citizens renew prescriptions and notify them of potential health risks. With AI being able to access, aggregate, and analyze sensitive personal information of the whole Chinese population, I have a hard time believing that the Chinese government will leave this capability to companies in the private sector.

Besides the fact that AI is essential to the national interest, large AI models such as ChatGPT are also extremely expensive to develop and maintain. It has been estimated that each training of a large language model could cost millions of U.S. dollars. Racing to become the leading suppliers of AI technologies in China, venture capitalists and technology companies could easily pour tens of billions of dollars into developing large language models that are very similar to each other, leading to overprovisioning of similar AI technologies.

In the view of the Chinese national government, overprovisioning, which has happened in the intelligent electric vehicle industry, is not an efficient utilization of China’s financial resources, and thus should not be encouraged. Instead, China may centralize financial and computing resources to one or a selected few institutions to develop AI foundation models.

Going forward, the AI ecosystem will be divided into development of foundation models and specialty fine-tuning. For national security and cost efficiency reasons, I foresee that China’s foundation models would be trained by only one or a few SOEs with substantial financial and computing resources, and most applications will be achieved via lightweight fine-tuning of these foundation models toward specialized uses, such as education, healthcare consulting, legal assistance, customer services, and many more.

Hence, technology companies in China should focus on leveraging their vertical expertise and know-how, as well as user data, to fine-tune the foundation models for commercialization in different business verticals, instead of investing an enormous amount of resources in developing foundation models.

The creation of a new AI-focused SOE may incentive the rapid growth and development of the Chinese semiconductor industry, particularly Chinese Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). GPUs are essential in large-language model training, but the United States has imposed a ban on exports to China of Nvidia and AMD’s flagship artificial intelligence chips. If AI foundation models were to be developed by one or more Chinese SOEs, I foresee further tightening up of export control of AI processors, and SOEs would have no other alternatives but to rely solely on domestic semiconductor suppliers. This could bring short-term pains but long-term benefits to the whole Chinese AI ecosystem.

Lastly, just to illustrate the intelligence delivered by models like ChatGPT, I asked ChatGPT the same question addressed in this piece. Below is the insightful and thorough analysis it provided. Reading this answer, I become even more convinced that China will create a new SOE to provide basic AI capabilities fueling the development of various sectors in China.

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By Shaoshan Liu for The Diplomat

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Understanding China’s social credit...

It’s easier to talk about what China’s social credit system isn’t than what it is. Ever since 2014, when China announced a six-year plan to build a system to reward actions that build trust in society and penalize the opposite, it has been one of the most misunderstood things about China in Western discourse. Now, with new documents released in mid-November, there’s an opportunity to correct the record.

For most people outside China, the words “social credit system” conjure up an instant image: a Black Mirror–esque web of technologies that automatically score all Chinese citizens according to what they did right and wrong. But the reality is, that terrifying system doesn’t exist, and the central government doesn’t seem to have much appetite to build it, either.

Instead, the system that the central government has been slowly working on is a mix of attempts to regulate the financial credit industry, enable government agencies to share data with each other, and promote state-sanctioned moral values—however vague that last goal in particular sounds. There’s no evidence yet that this system has been abused for widespread social control

While local governments have been much more ambitious with their innovative regulations, causing more controversies and public pushback, the countrywide social credit system will still take a long time to materialize. And China is now closer than ever to defining what that system will look like. On November 14, several top government agencies collectively released a draft law on the Establishment of the Social Credit System, the first attempt to systematically codify past experiments on social credit and, theoretically, guide future implementation.

Yet the draft law still left observers with more questions than answers.

“This draft doesn’t reflect a major sea change at all,” says Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow of the Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center who has been tracking China’s social credit experiment for years. It’s not a meaningful shift in strategy or objective, he says.

Rather, the law stays close to local rules that Chinese cities like Shanghai have released and enforced in recent years on things like data collection and punishment methods—just giving them a stamp of central approval. It also doesn’t answer lingering questions that scholars have about the limitations of local rules. “This is largely incorporating what has been out there, to the point where it doesn’t really add a whole lot of value,” Daum adds.

So what is China’s current system actually like? Do people really have social credit scores? Is there any truth to the image of artificial-intelligence-powered social control that dominates Western imagination?

First of all, what is “social credit”?

When the Chinese government talks about social credit, the term covers two different things: traditional financial creditworthiness and “social creditworthiness,” which draws data from a larger variety of sectors.

The former is a familiar concept in the West: it documents individuals’ or businesses’ financial history and predicts their ability to pay back future loans. Because the market economy in modern China is much younger, the country lacks a reliable system to look up other people’s and companies’ financial records. Building such a system, aimed to help banks and other market players make business decisions, is an essential and not very controversial mission. Most Chinese policy documents refer to this type of credit with a specific word: “征信” (zhengxin, which some scholars have translated to “credit reporting”).

The latter—“social creditworthiness”—is what raises more eyebrows. Basically, the Chinese government is saying there needs to be a higher level of trust in society, and to nurture that trust, the government is fighting corruption, telecom scams, tax evasion, false advertising, academic plagiarism, product counterfeiting, pollution …almost everything. And not only will individuals and companies be held accountable, but legal institutions and government agencies will as well.

This is where things start to get confusing. The government seems to believe that all these problems are loosely tied to a lack of trust, and that building trust requires a one-size-fits-all solution. So just as financial credit scoring helps assess a person’s creditworthiness, it thinks, some form of “social credit” can help people assess others’ trustworthiness in other respects.

As a result, so-called “social” credit scoring is often lumped together with financial credit scoring in policy discussions, even though it’s a much younger field with little precedent in other societies.

What makes it extra confusing is that in practice, local governments have sometimes mixed up these two. So you may see a regulation talking about how non-financial activities will hurt your financial credit, or vice versa. (In just one example, the province of Liaoning said in August that it’s exploring how to reward blood donation in the financial credit system.)

But on a national level, the country seems to want to keep the two mostly separate, and in fact, the new draft law addresses them with two different sets of rules.

Has the government built a system that is actively regulating these two types of credit?

The short answer is no. Initially, back in 2014, the plan was to have a national system tracking all “social credit” ready by 2020. Now it’s almost 2023, and the long-anticipated legal framework for the system was just released in the November 2022 draft law.

That said, the government has mostly figured out the financial part. The zhengxin system—first released to the public in 2006 and significantly updated in 2020—is essentially the Chinese equivalent of American credit bureaus’ scoring and is maintained by the country’s central bank. It records the financial history of 1.14 billion Chinese individuals (and gives them credit scores), as well as almost 100 million companies (though it doesn’t give them scores).

On the social side, however, regulations have been patchy and vague. To date, the national government has built only a system focused on companies, not individuals, which aggregates data on corporate regulation compliance from different government agencies. Kendra Schaefer, head of tech policy research at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, has described it in a report for the US government’s US-China Economic and Security Review Commission as “roughly equivalent to the IRS, FBI, EPA, USDA, FDA, HHS, HUD, Department of Energy, Department of Education, and every courthouse, police station, and major utility company in the US sharing regulatory records across a single platform.” The result is openly searchable by any Chinese citizen on a recently built website called Credit China.

But there is some data on people and other types of organizations there, too. The same website also serves as a central portal for over three dozen (sometimes very specific) databases, including lists of individuals who have defaulted on a court judgment, Chinese universities that are legitimate, companies that are approved to build robots, and hospitals found to have conducted insurance fraud. Nevertheless, the curation seems so random that it’s hard to see how people could use the portal as a consistent or comprehensive source of data.

How will a social credit system affect Chinese people’s everyday lives?

The idea is to be both a carrot and a stick. So an individual or company with a good credit record in all regulatory areas should receive preferential treatment when dealing with the government—like being put on a priority list for subsidies. At the same time, individuals or companies with bad credit records will be punished by having their information publicly displayed, and they will be banned from participating in government procurement bids, consuming luxury goods, and leaving the country.

The government published a comprehensive list detailing the permissible punishment measures last year. Some measures are more controversial; for example, individuals who have failed to pay compensation decided by the court are restricted from traveling by plane or sending their children to costly private schools, on the grounds that these constitute luxury consumption. The new draft law upholds a commitment that this list will be updated regularly.

So is there a centralized social credit score computed for every Chinese citizen?

No. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no central social credit score for individuals. And frankly, the Chinese central government has never talked about wanting one.

So why do people, particularly in the West, think there is?

Well, since the central government has given little guidance on how to build a social credit system that works in non-financial areas, even in the latest draft law, it has opened the door for cities and even small towns to experiment with their own solutions.

As a result, many local governments are introducing pilot programs that seek to define what social credit regulation looks like, and some have become very contentious.

The best example is Rongcheng, a small city with only half a million in population that has implemented probably the most famous social credit scoring system in the world. In 2013, the city started giving every resident a base personal credit score of 1,000 that can be influenced by their good and bad deeds. For example, in a 2016 rule that has since been overhauled, the city decided that “spreading harmful information on WeChat, forums, and blogs” meant subtracting 50 points, while “winning a national-level sports or cultural competition” meant adding 40 points. In one extreme case, one resident lost 950 points in the span of three weeks for repeatedly distributing letters online about a medical dispute.

Such scoring systems have had very limited impact in China, since they have never been elevated to provincial or national levels. But when news of pilot programs like Rongcheng’s spread to the West, it understandably rang an alarm for activist groups and media outlets—some of which mistook it as applicable to the whole population. Prominent figures like George Soros and Mike Pence further amplified that false idea.

How do we know those pilot programs won’t become official rules for the whole country?

No one can be 100% sure of that, but it’s worth remembering that the Chinese central government has actually been pushing back on local governments’ rogue actions when it comes to social credit regulations.

In December 2020, China’s state council published a policy guidance responding to reports that local governments were using the social credit system as justification for punishing even trivial actions like jaywalking, recycling incorrectly, and not wearing masks. The guidance asks local governments to punish only behaviors that are already illegal under China’s current legislative system and not expand beyond that.

“When [many local governments] encountered issues that are hard to regulate through business regulations, they hoped to draw support from solutions involving credits,” said Lian Weiliang, an official at China’s top economic planning authority, at a press conference on December 25, 2020. “These measures are not only incompatible with the rule of law, but also incompatible with the need of building creditworthiness in the long run.”

And the central government’s pushback seems to have worked. In Rongcheng’s case, the city updated its local regulation on social credit scores and allowed residents to opt out of the scoring program; it also removed some controversial criteria for score changes.

Is there any advanced technology, like artificial intelligence, involved in the system?

For the most part, no. This is another common myth about China’s social credit system: people imagine that to keep track of over a billion people’s social behaviors, there must be a mighty central algorithm that can collect and process the data.

But that’s not true. Since there is no central system scoring everyone, there’s not even a need for that kind of powerful algorithm. Experts on China’s social credit system say that the entire infrastructure is surprisingly low-tech. While Chinese officials sometimes name-drop technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence when talking about the system, they never talk in detail about how these technologies might be utilized. If you check out the Credit China website, it’s no more than a digitized library of separate databases.

“There is no known instance in which automated data collection leads to the automated application of sanctions without the intervention of human regulators,” wrote Schaefer in the report. Sometimes the human intervention can be particularly primitive, like the “information gatherers” in Rongcheng, who walk around the village and write down fellow villagers’ good deeds by pen.

However, as the national system is being built, it does appear there’s the need for some technological element, mostly to pool data among government agencies. If Beijing wants to enable every government agency to make enforcement decisions based on records collected by other government agencies, that requires building a massive infrastructure for storing, exchanging, and processing the data.

To this end, the latest draft law talks about the need to use “diverse methods such as statistical methods, modeling, and field certification” to conduct credit assessments and combine data from different government agencies. “It gives only the vaguest hint that it’s a little more tech-y,” says Daum.

How are Chinese tech companies involved in this system?

Because the system is so low-tech, the involvement of Chinese tech companies has been peripheral. “Big tech companies and small tech companies … play very different roles, and they take very different strategies,” says Shazeda Ahmed, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, who spent several years in China studying how tech companies are involved in the social credit system.

Smaller companies, contracted by city or provincial governments, largely built the system’s tech infrastructure, like databases and data centers. On the other hand, large tech companies, particularly social platforms, have helped the system spread its message. Alibaba, for instance, helps the courts deliver judgment decisions through the delivery addresses it collects via its massive e-commerce platform. And Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, partnered with a local court in China to publicly shame individuals who defaulted on court judgments. But these tech behemoths aren’t really involved in core functions, like contributing data or compiling credit appraisals.

“They saw it as almost like a civic responsibility or corporate social responsibility: if you broke the law in this way, we will take this data from the Supreme People’s Court, and we will punish you on our platform," says Ahmed.

There are also Chinese companies, like Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Group, that have built private financial credit scoring products. But the result, like Alibaba’s Sesame Credit, is more like a loyalty rewards program, according to several scholars. Since the Sesame Credit score is mostly calculated on the basis of users’ purchase history and lending activities on Alibaba’s own platforms, the score is not reliable enough to be used by external financial institutions and has very limited effect on individuals.

Given all this, should we still be concerned about the implications of building a social credit system in China?

Yes. Even if there isn’t a scary algorithm that scores every citizen, the social credit system can still be problematic.

The Chinese government did emphasize that all social-credit-related punishment has to adhere to existing laws, but laws themselves can be unjust in the first place. “Saying that the system is an extension of the law only means that it is no better or worse than the laws it enforces. As China turns its focus increasingly to people’s social and cultural lives, further regulating the content of entertainment, education, and speech, those rules will also become subject to credit enforcement,” Daum wrote in a 2021 article.

Moreover, “this was always about making people honest to the government, and not necessarily to each other,” says Ahmed. When moral issues like honesty are turned into legal issues, the state ends up having the sole authority in deciding who’s trustworthy. One tactic Chinese courts have used in holding “discredited individuals” accountable is encouraging their friends and family to report their assets in exchange for rewards. “Are you making society more trustworthy by ratting out your neighbor? Or are you building distrust in your very local community?” she asks.

But at the end of the day, the social credit system does not (yet) exemplify abuse of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, and it’s important to evaluate it on the facts. The government is currently seeking public feedback on the November draft document for one month, though there’s no expected date on when it will pass and become law. It could still take years to see the final product of a nationwide social credit system.

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Source: By Zeyi Yang for the MIT Technology Review

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28 Most Innovative Robotics Startups...

Asia is the world’s fastest-growing market for robotics solutions, and for good reason. As the region’s quickly-growing countries industrialize and begin making more goods than ever, robots help them do so at a comparatively lower cost than doing so with human capital. The region has long been seen as an innovator in the consumer robots space as well. China is now arguably the global leader in the industrial robotics space, while Japan has long been the perennial home of consumer-focused robots like the ill-fated Aibo or the popular Pepper.

As the region’s most innovative robotics startups continue developing their products, they’re increasingly looking to expand globally. Startups like Makeblock and Rokid have already signaled their international ambitions, and others are quickly following. Read on to learn more about the region’s most innovative robotics startups, and how they’re making their mark on one of the world’s fastest-growing industries.

1. UBTECH Robotics

UBTECH is already one of the world’s leading robotics startups, but it has plans to grow even faster. The Shenzhen-based robotics company recently announced $820M in Series C funding (led by Tencent’s venture arm), which now values the startup at more than $5B. UBTECH specializes in building humanoid robots and offers both commercial and consumer models.

With the fresh round of funding, UBTECH will continue developing its next generation of robots, which will leverage AI technology and integrate with other home appliances and robots already on the market.

2. Geek+

Chinese robotics startup Geek+ is quickly becoming a major player in the fast-growing industrial robots sector. Its diverse line of logistics-focused robots provides companies with a full suite of automation capabilities, ranging from warehouse automation to automated order fulfillment. The company has raised more than $60M in funding to date and is planning a major international expansion for later this year.

Geek+’s most recent innovation is what it calls the world’s first “interweaving sorting robot”, an automated system that boosts parcel sorting efficiency. This technology is already proving integral to boosting the logistics capabilities at ecommerce powerhouses like Alibaba and Taobao, proof of the growing market at stake here.

3. Robot 3T

China’s robotics market is so large that sometimes it’s easy to forget that startups in other Asian countries are making significant strides in the space too. Enter Robot 3T, a Vietnamese robotics startup that’s building industrial-grade robots for quickly-growing SMEs in the region. While most of its robots are designed for manufacturing facilities, Robot 3T has also created several humanoid robots which it markets to the service industry.

In addition to its line of industrial robots, the Ho Chi Minh-based Robot 3T has also designed a separate set of automated weapon stations designed specifically for military use.

4. Coolso

Coolso is the Taiwanese company behind some of the most innovative gesture-control devices on the market today, with use cases in everything from VR systems to medical rehabilitation. Coolso’s gesture-control products operate based on muscle movement alone, making them far more sensitive than the average AR/VR gesture controller.

Just over a year old, the company’s award-winning products use a patented form of proprietary bio signal technology, making them truly unique in the robotics space. In 2016, the firm won the Grand Prize in the OpenStack Application Hackathon in Taipei.

5. Makeblock

Makeblock is a Shenzhen-based startup that is creating the next generation of educational robots for children around the world. The startup offers a diverse line of robotics products designed to teach children how to code, and it most recently raised $30M in Series B funding from investors like Sequoia Capital late last year to help it reach that goal – valuing at over $200M just five short years into its existence.

In addition to developing the robots themselves, Makeblock has also forged technology partnerships with other tech companies (such as Microsoft) to bring its robots to students in higher-education robotics programs.

6. Youcan Robotics

Youcan Robotics is a startup that’s designing an underwater robot that anyone can use to capture HD video and explore the depths of the world’s oceans. Youcan’s underwater ROV Drone is saltwater-resistant and has a 4K video camera built-in, along with a battery life of up to 5 hours. It’s also able to lock onto and track underwater objects, just like an air-based drone.

The Shanghai-based startup has primarily grown using seed funding so far, and has been conducting crowdfunding rounds on platforms like Indiegogo to fuel its earliest stages of growth.

7. CloudMinds

CloudMinds is a startup that’s developing connected cloud-based systems for robots. With dual headquarters in Beijing and Silicon Valley, CloudMinds wants to build the world’s first cloud computing network designed specifically for intelligent robots. In addition to what it calls “cloud-connected smart machines”, the startup is also building a cloud-based software layer that will allow robots to interface with their “cloud brain” to make decisions effectively.

CloudMinds has also developed a wearable helmet that allows visually impaired people to interface with robots via its cloud-based platform.

8. DJI

Now one of the world’s largest consumer drone makers (with more than 70% of the consumer drone market already secured), DJI is still in hyper growth mode with plans to roll out ever more advanced drones in the coming months. Many of its drones (like the Phantom 4) already have semi-autonomous flying capabilities, and DJI is currently working on several drones that it hopes will be fully autonomous.

In recent months, DJI has been more aggressive about seeking funding, and earlier this year it was reported as seeking $500M in funding to help it grow even further ahead of an anticipated IPO, which would likely be early next year.

9. SG Robotics

South Korea-based SG Robotics is looking to disrupt the world of robotics with its revolutionary self-powered exoskeleton devices. The startup’s robots, which are designed for people with disabilities or paralyzed individuals, give any person extra strength when walking, and also have the ability to carry heavy loads.

The startup recently won 3rd place at the world’s first Cybathlon held in Switzerland, a competition of the world’s most advanced exoskeleton robots.

10. Borns Robotics

Borns Robotics is a medical robotics startup based in Chengdu, a bustling business hub in western China. Its line of robotic surgery tools give doctors the ability to conduct highly complex and risky surgeries with unprecedented precision and accuracy. Earlier this year, the startup announced the raise of $18M in financing in a funding round led by Swiss China Capital.

The funding is expected to fund the startup’s research and development efforts through the completion of its first clinical trials, as well as the wide-scale rollout of BMR5000, its next-generation automated surgery system.

11. Rokid

Rokid is a Hangzhou-based startup that produces a diverse range of smart devices and robots, ranging from AI-powered voice assistants to robotic smart glasses. Earlier this year, the startup raised $100M in Series B extension funding in a round led by Credit Suisse to help it expand in the US, its second largest market after China.

In addition to its technology-focused R&D team, Rokid also boasts a highly-qualified scientific advisory committee to help inform its work. The committee is comprised of dozens of members from a diverse range of industries.

12. Ascent

Tokyo-based Ascent is building the next generation of AI-powered robotic vehicles. Ascent’s research team is intensely focused on developing highly advanced neural models and machine learning algorithms to be the “brains” of its intelligent vehicles, which range from autonomous vehicles being manufactured by major carmakers, to boutique projects.

The Ascent team has raised more than $11M in funding to date, and continues to work with a wide range of technology partners in the automotive industry to develop its technology.

13. Softbank Robotics

Though a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Softbank, the team at Softbank Robotics operate as their own startup. The startup is perhaps best known for its humanoid emotion-reading robot, Pepper, which is already in widespread use around the world (primarily in the service industry, for which it was originally designed).

The robotics startup recently announced a landmark partnership with HSBC, which will see it become the first to roll out the robot in HSBC bank branches across the United States.

14. LifeRobotics

Founded in 2007, Tokyo-based LifeRobotics develops industrial robots that help businesses automate manufacturing and warehousing processes. The LifeRobotics team also develops what it calls “cooperative working robots” – automated machines that are able to learn advanced functionality and tasks provided they have a user’s guidance.

LifeRobotics was recently acquired by robotics behemoth Fanuc in a multimillion dollar deal that will allow the startup to continue operating as an independent entity under the Fanuc umbrella.

15. Insight Robotics

Insight Robotics is a Hong Kong-based startup that’s developing robots to improve the obscure (but critical) forestry management industry. Its data collection robots, which are designed to be deployed in heavily forested regions or national parks, give operators the ability to detect potential problems (such as forest fires or tree diseases) more quickly than ever.

The startup has closed more than $12M in funding to date, and earlier this year announced an additional $9M in funding in a new investment round led by Linear Capital and Beyond Ventures.

16. AI Nemo

The China-based team at AI Nemo has developed one of the world’s first home companion robots, the Nemo. The startup, which has raised more than $10M in funding to date, is presently building the next generation of its robot, which integrates with a number of consumer appliances and can also make video calls. The robot is marketed as a way to improve communication between family members, and can be remotely controlled by a proprietary mobile app as well.

17. AUBO

Beijing-based AUBO is a rising star in the growing cobots (collaborative robots) industry. Its robotics products are targeted towards warehousing and manufacturing facilities, and are designed to work in conjunction with humans to perform complex manufacturing tasks. The company’s flagship robot arm sells for around $18K, and has found a loyal customer base in the automated manufacturing sector.

The startup has dual research and development centers in Beijing and the United States, and has established technology partnerships with manufacturing companies in both countries.

18. PLEN Robotics

PLEN Robotics is an Osaka-based startup that’s building the Cube, what it bills as a “portable personal assistant robot”. The Cube is a robot designed for the consumer space that’s equipped with a smart camera, motion tracking and facial recognition technology, as well as speech recognition capabilities. The startup recently announced a partnership with Softbank which will see it work with the technology giant to develop a smart speaker.

19. Slamtec

Shanghainese startup Slamtec builds localization and navigation services for smart robots. Using cutting-edge AI technology, the startup is developing a “robot cerebellum” that will have the ability to autonomously make agile movements, as well as have increased depth perception. Last year, Slamtec raised $22M in Series C funding to develop the next generation of automatic positioning algorithms for its robots.

20. ZongMu

ZongMu is building software that helps autonomous vehicles “see” while on the road. Last year, the startup secured $14M in Series B funding to help it improve its self-driving technology, which is already being used by some of China’s largest automakers (like Geely and Yema Auto). This month, ZongMu announced a strategic partnership with automotive electronics manufacturer Visteon to develop the next generation of automated parking technology.

21. Aether Biomedical

Aether is a medical robotics startup that’s based in New Delhi. The team at Aether is building next-generation robotics solutions for the future of healthcare, including its flagship product Zeus – a bionic limb for amputees. The startup partners with doctors and medical researchers around the world to develop additional technology solutions through its “medical device innovation platform”.

22. Mitra

Bangalore-based Mitra has quickly risen to become the most advanced humanoid robot manufacturer in India’s startup ecosystem. Its 5-foot-tall Mitra robot was first showing off at India’s 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, where it greeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The robot is designed for the service industry, and can interact with customers as well as provide autonomous navigation.

23. Robostar

Robostar is one of South Korea’s foremost industrial robots companies, and it has created a diverse range of robots that are designed for wide-scale manufacturing. Robostar recently announced a $48M investment from LG, which will see the electronics giant take a significant stake in the startup and collaborate with it on future products.

24. Rotimatic

Singaporean startup Rotimatic distinguishes itself from the competition by being the world’s only fully automated kitchen robot that makes roti, a popular bread found throughout India and Southeast Asia (that also happens to be incredibly labor-intensive to cook). The startup recently raised $30M in Series C funding in a new investment round led by private equity fund Credence.

25. SenseTime

Rooted in a research team investigating deep learning at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, SenseTime earned early renown by occasionally beating Google and Facebook in image-recognition competitions. Rapidly expanding on the back of massive rounds of VC, it currently supplies face-recognition tech that the Chinese government plans to use to track citizens through its network of 170 million CCTV cameras, and with which state-owned telecoms behemoth China Mobile will monitor its 300 million users. Banks, prisons, airports, police and retailers are already on the SenseTime client list; it may add autonomous driving and augmented reality to that roster soon.

26. Cambricon

Only two years old, this state-backed semiconductor and AI chip specialist has big ambitions. “We hope to take 30% market share of China’s high-performance smart chip market and to have 1 billion smart devices worldwide integrating our processors in three years’ time,” Chen Tianshi, one of its founding brothers, said recently. Optimized for deep learning capabilities, Cambricon chips are currently being slotted into Huawei smartphone products. If the company realizes its ambitions, it will help China achieve self-sufficiency in digital components and reduce dependency on imports.

28. Cloudwalk

Another facial-recognition giant, Guangzhou-based Cloudwalk started in business supplying technology to border-control agents. Now 24 Chinese provinces employ its public-security solutions – facial recognition terminals, scanning during door entry – and it has had particular success supplying software to the banking industry. It recently signed a deal to export its capabilities to Zimbabwe, in order to build a national facial-recognition database; the first Chinese AI initiative in Africa. Pushing into new areas, like 3D face-scanning, should ensure it continues to fight its corner of the AI playing field.

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