Whoever controls the strongest artificial intelligence controls the world.
Artificial intelligence is the most important technology of the 21st century. It is therefore important to understand global ambitions and movements.
In this article I examine the global artificial intelligence industry and in this context consider the aspects of politics, data, economy, start-ups, financing, research and infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence needs more attention from politicians
So far, the first wave of digitization has developed without much government influence. Although there are now plans to break Google’s monopoly (USA and Europe), for example by imposing European fines on Google and Facebook, politics is lagging behind the market by over a decade.
As far as AI is concerned, for the first time in recent history I have observed a multitude of initiatives, strategies and actions by dozens of governments around the world — with very different goals and approaches.
Artificial intelligence is and remains an issue that politicians and administrations of all nations have to deal with.
AIs are relevant for climate protection and economic policy.
Economic power through artificial intelligence
While politics provides the framework conditions for research, financing, education, data, promotion and regulation, in the medium term AIs must be developed by companies and brought onto the market.
First of all, national interests have to be taken into account.
These include, often with their own agenda and independently, global corporations with their own AI research and AI products.
In my view, Google (Alphabet), Amazon and Microsoft are global leaders. The Chinese Internet giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent are also relevant players.
There are two types of companies: Those that develop and sell AI as a core product and those that use AI to complement their value chain.
Data is a competitive advantage
The foundation of any artificial intelligence is data. We therefore need data on several points.
First of all, we need data for the research and training of narrow artificial intelligence. The more digital your business model is, the more data you have.
For this reason, marketing leaders (Google, Facebook), software companies (Salesforce, Microsoft) and e-commerce retailers (Zalando, Amazon) have been heavily involved in AI for years.
Artificial intelligence start-ups are the giants of the day after tomorrow
Start-ups are essential for any economy because they take on two essential functions of an ecosystem.
Start-ups are drivers of innovation. These young companies are often more courageous, faster and more flexible in developing new products than established companies. Backed by the capital of venture capital funds and business angels, start-ups take high risks in the expectation of extraordinary success.
Although 95% of start-ups do not survive the first 5 years, the entire ecosystem benefits from them.
Without infrastructure there is no artificial intelligence
By infrastructure I mean not only the availability of data but also the necessary computing and performance capacities.
NVIDIA used to be known for their graphics cards among gamer. Today, NVIDIA is one of the leading manufacturers of GPUs, which are increasingly used for AI applications. Google, Intel and many other companies are very active in the development of new AI chips in various forms.
At the same time, Microsoft, AWS, Google and IBM are expanding cloud capacity around the world to meet growing demand.
Artificial intelligence must be financed
The development of artificial intelligence is expensive.
Top AI researchers are rare and receive salaries of up to €300,000 per year.
Data must be collected, sorted and labelled. Developing AI models takes time for experiments, mistakes and new methods.
AIs need data, must be trained and educated.
These costs are borne by companies, start-ups, investors and also the state.
China has understood this and is investing over 130 billion euros in the Chinese AI market. Provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjing are each investing tens of billions in local AI industry.
Comentários