For more on this, we are joined in the studio by CCTV's Jin Yingqiao.
Q1, Tell us more about some of the new trends in the industry in China.
A1, It seems like everyone is betting on AI, or Artificial Intelligence, for the future. Be it Google, Facebook, IBM, Amazon or Apple racing against each other globally. And in China, tech giants the BAT, or Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, and Huawei, and home appliance makers Midea and Changhong all have weighed in.
For Baidu, it's about voice technology and driverless cars. Actually in voice recognition technology, companies like Baidu and iflytek are leading the world. And in the field of facial recognition, Chinese companies like the Face++ are also on par with international rivals. Midea has spent three months acquiring about 95 shares of German robotic company Kuka a global leader in the industry. And Changhong has just released the world's first AI TV.
In 2015, China had close to 100 start up companies in artificial intelligence. 65 of them got investment of a total volume of over 290 million yuan. Baidu's CEO Li Yanhong said, the next five to 10 years will be a golden period for AI development in China.
Q2, So what are insiders saying about the industries that are going to be affected by AI?
A2, Well, Chinese IT veteran and angel investor Li Kaifu, who has a huge following in China, says this: in the next 10 years, 90 percent of practitioners of certain jobs will be replaced by AI robots: assistants, security guards, drivers, salespeople, translators and journalists, yes journalists -- will be replaced according to Li Kaifu. He says the number of papers written by Chinese are no less than that of their American counterparts.
He says foreign academics all know how good China's AI is, a fact that's not known well by the public. One interesting new front is EQ, or emotional quotient, that some are working on. When South Korean's Go Lee Sedol was defeated by Google's artificial intelligence system AlphaGo, he said he didn't want to play it any more, because it lacks emotion. And now, Microsoft has rolled out a robot called "Xiao Bing", an emotional robot.
The project led by the company's Asian research branch. You can add her on WeChat in China. The robot can converse to comfort someone who's tired after work. Xiao Bing can also talk using voice messages, but unlike other robots, there are emotions like happiness and sadness in the tone. According to the deputy managing executive of Microsoft, Lu Qi, that's what attracts users.
