China's AI Industry Worth 150 Billion Yuan, Expected to Triple by 2025

- Key words of China's artificial intelligence (AI) industry growth... technology · market · policy -

China is accelerating the 'development of articial intelligence (AI)' to become the global number one artificial intelligence powerhouse by 2030. As of 2020, the level of China's AI technology is 85.8 percent of that of the United States (100), ranking third following Europe (89.5%). South Korea's AI technology level is 80.9 percent of that of the United States.

According to a report titled, ‘The Trends in China's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Industry and Implications' issued by the Institute for International Trade (President: Park Chun-il) of the Korea International Trade Association, China's artificial intelligence industry reached 150 billion yuan (approximately 25.7890 trillion won) in 2020. It is expected to see the average growth of 26.8 percent every year and reach 450 billion yuan (about 77.3640 trillion won) by 2025. In addition, 20.7 percent of the world's AI papers cited in 2020 were published in China, which overtook the United States for the first time in the number of paper citations.

China sees 2020 as the year to mark the complete convergence of artificial intelligence and the real economy, and plans to actively utilize artificial intelligence technology as a driving force for industrial structure advancement and economic growth. The Chinese government proposed artificial intelligence as the first of the seven cutting-edge science and technology to be perfected by 2035 in the '14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Long-Range Objectives’, which was passed at the annual two sessions in March 2021.

China is utilizing articicual intelligence in various fields, including urban infrastructure, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation. In addition to leading the global trend in the development and commercialization of facial recognition security technology, the autonomous vehicle market is also rapidly growing. China is also taking advantage of AI technology to solve social problems such as rapid population aging, insufficient number of doctors relative to the population, and medical imbalance between urban and rural areas due to urban concentration of medical facilities.

The report stated, “China has emerged as the second artificial intelligence powerhouse following the United States based on ▲big data competitiveness, ▲a huge domestic market of 1.4 billion people, and ▲a policy environment supported by the government's strong will and mid-and long-term strategy,” and analyzed, “China permits a wide range of personal information collection and use under the government approval, so that access to personal data is relatively easy. As a result of having a clear vision at the national level and making all-out efforts to secure human resources, the market is growing rapidly with large-scale capital inflows and talent gathering.

Jeon Bo-hee, a senior researcher at the Korea International Trade Association, said, “The rapid growth of China's artificial intelligence industry is a product of political efforts that have been driven by policies that China has systematically prepared with a long-term vision, such as the Thousand People Plan (2008), China Manufacturing 2025 (2015), Next-Generation AI Development Plan (2017), and the Universal Plan (2019),” and added, “In order to nurture the AI industry, South Korea also needs to remove regulations that restrict innovation, shift its policy direction to a paradigm of openness and sharing, and strive to foster high-quality human resources and attract talents from overseas.”