China has surpassed the United States in the number of researches being conducted in the field of artificial intelligence.
A new study published by the U.S. government's National Science and Technology Council revealed that China published around 350 scientific papers concerning deep learning and deep neural networks in 2015. The figure is considerably higher than the more than the 250 published by American researchers in the same year, the Washington Post reported.
The paper noted that the steep increase in the volume of research being done by China in the field is indicative of the quick pace at w3hich the country has shifted its research priorities.
China has also surpassed the US in the quality of research, with more than 80 papers published in 2015 being cited at least once by other studies, an indication of the level of influence the papers have in the field. But contrast, around 70 American studies have been cited by other research in the same period.
Deep learning is a sub-field of the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning which deals with the development of algorithms to help computers detect and analyze patterns in data to create abstract models.
The field has become significant in the development of digital personal assistance software for a wide variety of commercial application that companies have made a considerable investment in the field and partnered with other research institutions.
For instance, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei announced on Oct. 11 its partnership with the University of California, Berkeley to conduct further researches in the field, as well as other branches of AI, including reinforcement learning, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.
The joint venture between Huawei's Noah's Ark Laboratory and UC Berkeley's Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research will receive an initial funding of $1 million, Tech Crunch reported.
Huawei expressed optimism in their new venture, saying t6hat the effort will help bring new experiences to the public.