The 2017 National Science and Technology Work Conference was held in Beijing on Jan 10. 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned from the Ministry of Science and Technology, The minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang delivered a report, the meeting of the science and technology work in 2016 inventory summary, and the deployment of science and technology work in 2017 ten tasks.
Master’s recent defeat of Nie Weiping has raised concerns about artificial intelligence. The Ministry of Science and Technology also proposed that the implementation plan of “Science and Technology Innovation 2030- Major Projects” will be completed as soon as possible, and the special plan for ARTIFICIAL intelligence will be prepared and completed, and the demonstration of major projects such as artificial intelligence will be accelerated. In addition, the meeting also mentioned the creation of national scientific and technological force led by national laboratories.
Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include editing robots, writing robots and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.
According to the report, China’s R&D expenditure reached 1,544 billion yuan in 2016, exceeding 1.5 trillion yuan for the first time. R&D accounted for 2.1% of GDP, up 0.03 percentage points from 2015. However, the figure is 0.1 percentage point lower than the 2.2 percent growth target set in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan. However, it is worth noting that some Chinese enterprises have begun to pay more attention to RESEARCH and development. For example, Huawei’s annual research and development expenditure exceeds Apple’s.
Major projects involve multiple market hotspots
In the age of information economy, science and technology are changing with each passing day. After the central Government issued the Outline of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy in 2016 and held the National Science and Technology Innovation Conference, the annual National Science and Technology Work Conference has attracted much attention from the market.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned from the Ministry of Science and Technology that Wan Gang put forward ten key aspects of work in 2017 when speaking at the conference. The first important task it mentioned was to speed up the deployment and implementation of major science and technology projects, and grasp the commanding heights of a new round of scientific and technological competition in areas of strategic necessity. First, the “Science and Technology Innovation 2030 — Major projects”, such as artificial intelligence and deep earth exploration, will be fully launched. Second, we will continue to implement major national science and technology projects and promote the application and industrialization of their achievements.
21st Century Economic Report reporters learned that Wan Gang mentioned the “science and technology innovation 2030- major projects”, that is, towards 2030, a batch of major science and technology projects reflecting the national strategic intention will be selected and implemented in batches. They include aeroengines and gas turbines, deep-sea space stations, quantum communication and quantum computing, brain science and brain-like research, intelligent manufacturing and robotics, etc.
Wan also mentioned that the rapid development of ARTIFICIAL intelligence in recent years has aroused great attention from the scientific and technological circles, industries and investment circles. Developed economies such as the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom have issued a series of strategies, plans and policies on ARTIFICIAL intelligence to seize the strategic commanding heights of future competition.
The field of artificial intelligence mentioned by Wan Gang is expected to become the biggest hot spot in the market in 2017. AI has had its ups and downs over the past 60 years: from Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov in the 1990s, to Watson winning the Jeopardy Challenge, to AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol in 2016 and Master beating Nie Weiping in 2017, AI has earned its eyeballs. Industry insiders predict that in 2017, lightweight AI applications may be launched and AI will become a hot spot for entrepreneurship.
There is intense international competition in this field. Yao Xing, vice president of Tencent group and head of AI Lab, told 21st Century Business Herald that with breakthroughs in deep learning, improvements in learning models and the rapid development of machine learning capabilities in the past five years, artificial intelligence will also develop rapidly.
He believes that in the age of AI, Chinese Internet companies, including Tencent, can compete with the world’s best. First, Chinese enterprises have enough data. China has a high proportion of Internet users in the world, and enough data is generated every day. Another is that China has a very good talent base. According to statistics, there are many Chinese in machine learning field in the world.
In terms of major projects, Wan said that nearly 100 science and technology plans (special projects, funds, etc.) have basically been optimized and integrated, and the layout of five new science and technology plans has taken shape. The national Key RESEARCH and development Program was officially launched, and 1,163 science and technology projects were launched in 42 key projects.
In addition to major projects, in the Ministry of Science and Technology key layout of the ten work, Wan Gang also mentioned to the national laboratory as the lead, to build a national strategic science and technology force; Continue to strengthen basic frontier research, enhance original innovation capacity. Wan also stressed the need to get deeply involved in global innovation governance and enhance the internationalization of scientific and technological innovation.
How far is China from being a world power in science and technology?
Wan Gang, minister of Science and Technology, revealed a set of data in the report “Starting a new journey to build a world science and technology power”. The report estimated that the total social R&D expenditure in 2016 will reach 1,544 billion yuan, accounting for 2.1% of GDP. “Enterprises accounted for 78 percent of the total, the contribution of scientific and technological progress increased to 56.2 percent, and important progress was made in making China an innovative country.” Wan gang said.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that R&D expenditure reached 1416.99 billion yuan in 2015, with the ratio of R&D to GDP at 2.07 percent, an increase of 0.05 percentage points over the previous year.
The figure is expected to increase by 0.03 percentage points compared with 2015, but is 0.1 percentage points lower than the 2.2 percent development target set in the 12th Five-Year Plan, and still lags behind major innovation-oriented countries, according to the data.
A key to the development of international science and technology is the R&D expenditure, that is, the whole society research and experimental development expenditure. R&D investment intensity, that is, the ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP, is an important indicator used to measure the degree of scientific and technological innovation efforts of a country or a region.
After surpassing Germany in 2010 and Japan in 2013, China has become the world’s second largest r&d investment country after the United States, but the intensity of r&d investment lags far behind that of the United States, Japan and South Korea, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.
According to He Fei, a researcher at Peking University’s Discipline Development Office, in the decade from 2003 to 2013, the figure in the United States was 2.48 percent in 2004 and 2.81 percent in 2009. In 2014, the ratio was 2.74 percent in the U.S., 2.84 percent in Germany, 3.59 percent in Japan, and 4.29 percent in South Korea.
However, it is worth noting that in recent years, some Chinese enterprises have begun to attach importance to R&D investment, and a few enterprises are very prominent. Huawei, for example, has spent about $38 billion on r&d over the past 10 years. Huawei ranked ninth among the world’s top 10 companies in r&d spending in 2016, with an estimated $9.2 billion, surpassing giants such as Apple and Cisco, a Senior huawei executive revealed publicly recently.
In addition, the national level is also increasing investment in RESEARCH and development from many aspects, and focusing on breakthroughs in key technologies under the guidance of national laboratories.
In response to an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald in 2016, Yin Hejun, vice minister of Science and Technology, mentioned that China should learn from the US in some fields. For example, “The US has its own characteristics in the construction of national laboratories, which is worth learning from China”.
Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.
The head of a state key laboratory of IT based in Shandong province told the 21st Century Business Herald that companies like them and Huawei value investment in RESEARCH and development. The accumulation of the past decade has taken them to a new height. This will allow them to compete with the US in most areas within the next five to ten years, but there is still a gap.
“Our starting point is higher than them, they can not take the detours in front of them, in the current support of some public technology can catch up. But there is always a time lag and schedule issue in this area.” “The director said. (Reporter: Zhou Hui Editing: Yang Zhijin)