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source of this article: times weekly author: wang xia

the story of ai began in 1956.

at a conference at dartmouth college that summer, the concept of artificial intelligence was first proposed.

on the other side of the ocean, in 1956, the call to "march to science" was issued, laying the foundation for china's emerging science and technologies such as semiconductors, automation, computing technology, atomic energy, electronics, aviation and rocket technology.

after decades of development, the time has come to 2023. this year is also called by many people as "the first year of the ai ​​era."

according to data from the national bureau of statistics, my country's total social research and experimental development (r&d) funding will reach 3,327.8 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 233 times compared with 1991, with an average annual growth of 18.6%. in 2019 and 2022, with this number exceeding 2 trillion and 3 trillion respectively, my country has become the world's second largest r&d investment country after the united states.

it is hard to imagine that 75 years ago, our country's scientific and technological foundation was almost zero. at that time, there were only more than 30 specialized scientific research institutions in the country. there are no more than 50,000 scientific and technological personnel in the country, and there are only more than 600 personnel specialized in scientific research.

during these 75 years of scientific and technological development, many achievements have continued to emerge. from the former "two bombs and one satellite",hybrid rice, to today's 5g technology, "china sky eye"... numerous breakthroughs have paved the way for the development of my country's science and technology undertakings.

andaiit is just a wave that has rolled up in the tide of scientific and technological development in the past 75 years. as a representative of cutting-edge technology, the past, present and future of my country's artificial intelligence industry from 0 to 1, and then from 1 to infinity, are undoubtedly an aspect of the development of science and technology in new china.

how long does it take to get from dartmouth to china?

after the call to “march to science” was put forward in 1956, my country’s science and technology industry ushered in rapid development in the 1970s.

in 1979, the computer society of china electronics society (the predecessor of china computer federation), which had just resumed its activities, held the "computer science summer seminar" at jilin university.

the leader of the leading group of this meeting is the famous algebraist and computer scientist wang xianghao. experts participating in the discussion include wu wenjun, wu yunteng, lu ruqian and others.

just as the core participants of the dartmouth conference later greatly influenced the development of artificial intelligence in the world, the researchers who attended this computer science summer symposium later became the first mainstays of the development of artificial intelligence in our country.

according to zhang xiaorong, director of the deepin technology research institute, the development of artificial intelligence in my country is divided into three stages: technology research and development, achievement transformation and industrialization development. before 2012, the main theme was "guang ji liang". the development of artificial intelligence is mainly concentrated at the technical research and development level. with the continuous investment of talents and resources, the theoretical foundation and technical experience have been fully accumulated.

(source: tu chong)

in 1986, facing the severe challenges of the booming development of high-tech in the world and increasingly fierce international competition, the country released the "863 plan" aimed at improving my country's independent innovation capabilities. as a high-tech hot spot at the time, the intelligent computer theme ("863-306" theme) was included in the "863 plan".

the continuous investment in the 863 program has allowed our country to achieve a number of major scientific research results in high-performance computers, intelligent interfaces, and intelligent applications. at the same time, it has also laid the foundation for a large number of high-tech enterprises such as sugon, iflytek, and hanwang.

under the influence of the plan, the first batch of national key laboratories in artificial intelligence also began to be established. the "golden triangle" of information science in my country - the national key laboratory of pattern recognition of the institute of automation, chinese academy of sciences, the national key laboratory of intelligent technology and systems of tsinghua university, and the national key laboratory of visual and auditory information processing of peking university were all prepared and completed here. completed in a while.

(source: tu chong)

more research institutes outside universities are also taking root in the country. in 1998, microsoft research china (later renamed microsoft research asia) was established. li kaifu, the founder of zero one thing, is the first president.

in 2004, yao qizhi joined the center for advanced research at tsinghua university. the following year, yao qizhi led the establishment of the "computer science experimental class" in cooperation with microsoft research asia, and the famous "yao class" was born. after graduation, graduates of this class are scattered in various links of the artificial intelligence industry chain. the founders of megvii technology, one of the "four little dragons of ai", and the self-driving unicorn pony.ai are all graduates of this class.

how much preparation do we need to prepare for the arrival of the ai ​​era?

from 2012 to 2019, my country's artificial intelligence began to experience a shift from technology to scenarios. during this period, as various application scenarios such as computer vision, conversational customer service, natural language processing, and speech analysis gradually emerged, artificial intelligence technology gradually penetrated into some industries.

sensetime, megvii technology, yitu technology, and yuncong technology, known as the "four little dragons of ai", were basically established during this period.

during this period, policies on artificial intelligence were also frequently introduced.

in july 2015, the state council issued the "guiding opinions on actively promoting the "internet +" action", which listed "internet +" artificial intelligence as one of the eleven main actions. the "thirteenth five-year plan for national economic and social development of the people's republic of china" released in march of the following year included "key breakthroughs in artificial intelligence technology in emerging fields".

in july 2017, the state council issued the "new generation artificial intelligence development plan", which mentioned that it plans to initially establish an artificial intelligence laws, regulations, ethical norms and policy system in 2025.

in june 2019, the national new generation artificial intelligence governance professional committee issued the "new generation artificial intelligence governance principles", proposing eight principles that relevant parties in the development of artificial intelligence need to follow.

in 2022, the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china stated: "we must adhere to the principle that science and technology is the primary productive force, talent is the primary resource, and innovation is the primary driving force, and we must thoroughly implement the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, the strategy of strengthening the country with talents, and the innovation-driven development strategy, and open up new development opportunities." new tracks in the field, constantly creating new momentum and new advantages for development.”

since then, technology has become the new guideline as the primary productive force, and artificial intelligence has begun to develop vigorously.

qichacha counted the number of artificial intelligence-related companies from 2014 to 2023 and found that the number of related company registrations has been increasing year by year in the past ten years, of which 199,400 were registered in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 159.19%, reaching nearly ten annual growth peak. the "2020 china artificial intelligence development report" mentioned that in the past ten years, china has applied for nearly 390,000 ai patents, ranking first in the world.

according to data released by the internet society of china, in 2020, the scale of my country's artificial intelligence industry was 303.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%, higher than the global growth rate.

in zhang xiaorong's view, after 2020, as ai infrastructure continues to strengthen and ai applications become increasingly widespread, my country's ai will move towards the industrialization stage of development.

(source: tu chong)

in 2023, the evolution of generative ai continues to accelerate. ai has moved from model melee to more practical application market competition. under the new competitive landscape, after the "four little dragons", the "big five tigers" - zhipu, dark side of the moon, zero one thing, baichuan intelligence, and minimax have stepped onto the stage.

by 2024, "application scenarios" will replace "large model innovation" and become the core issue of concern in the industry. wang jian, academician of the chinese academy of engineering and founder of alibaba cloud, believes that the potential of gpt has not been fully explored. fu sheng, chairman and ceo of cheetah mobile, also believes that the emergence of intelligence may take multiple routes.

china's technology companies are moving towards ai in many ways.

in september, yang yajun, deputy director of the information technology development department of the ministry of industry and information technology of china, attended the 2024 service trade fair and said that china has initially built a relatively comprehensive artificial intelligence industry system, with more than 4,500 related companies, and the scale of the core industry has reached close to 600 billion yuan, and the industrial chain covers key upstream and downstream links such as chips, algorithms, data, platforms, and applications.

according to estimates from cicc research, the market demand for china's ai industry will reach 5.6 trillion yuan by 2030, and china's total investment in the ai ​​industry will exceed 10 trillion yuan from 2024 to 2030.