Global Courant
China has vowed to boost the development of its artificial intelligence sector, but the country is facing a shortage of software engineers.
The most recent illustration: Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) recently launched a “Vancouver Plan” to move some top AI specialists from Beijing to its new lab in Vancouver, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing some people familiar with the plan. The report said the plan was launched due to heightened political tensions between the US and China.
Chinese state media and some commentators say the move of MSRA specialists shows that a global AI race is heating up – a trend that will push China to nurture more AI experts.
After all, no one thinks there are enough — and that’s the basic handicap slowing China’s progress. Elon Musk says China is only 12 months behind the US in artificial intelligence, but other experts are more pessimistic.
Sensitive topic
After publishing the original FT story, Microsoft told the newspaper that it has nothing called a “Vancouver Plan” but is setting up a new lab in Vancouver, which will be staffed with people from other MSR labs around the world, including China. It added that the reported number of Chinese workers who will move to Canada – original sources had said 20-40 – was incorrect, but did not provide a corrected number.
A SeaBus crosses Burrard Inlet between Vancouver and the neighboring city of North Vancouver. Photo: Wikipedia
Founded in 1998, MSRA conducts research in areas central to Microsoft’s long-term strategy and future computing vision, including natural user interface, AI, cloud and edge computing, big data and knowledge mining, computer science fundamentals, intelligent multimedia, and computational science.
Concerns that MSRA’s approach to sharing does not adequately protect US intellectual property goes back many years. In April 2019, MSRA was charged by a US-based thinktank from collaboration with the National University of Defense Technology (NUDR), a Chinese military university, to AI research that can be used for surveillance and censorship in Xinjiang.
‘Big steps’
The Global Times is bullish on news of the MSRA move. “To claim that the relocation of some researchers from a single lab ‘threatens’ China’s talent training is sheer exaggeration,” the paper said. say in a commentary published Monday. “China has made great strides in expanding its pool of high-tech talent in recent years, and the country has unique advantages with its huge market and growing high-tech sector to both train local talent and attract people from abroad.”
Global Times says China has no inherent advantages in attracting global talent, but the United States’ containment strategy has boosted China’s talent cultivation for independent technological innovation, as well as government investment in high-tech areas.
“Some people think Microsoft is concerned about the escalating geopolitical conflicts around the world, while others think the company doesn’t want its top AI specialists to join its competitors in China,” writes a columnist from Hebei in an article published Sunday. “Whatever happens, the decision to move staff shows Microsoft’s lack of self-confidence.”
He says that the company took the initiative three years ago to dismiss the rumor that it would exit the Chinese markets. With its workforce relocation plan, Microsoft is now no different from the US government, which wants to suppress China’s AI development, he says.
“The proposed workforce move could weaken Microsoft’s support for China’s tech sector, but it could also encourage Chinese companies to cultivate and invest more local talent,” a Shandong-based writer said in a statement. article appeared on Saturday.
Microsoft logo. Photo: Global Courant Files, AFP/Antoine Wdo/Hans Lucas
However, he adds that the MSRA was once a model of Sino-US high-tech research cooperation and has played a positive role in promoting the development of China’s technology industry. He says the MSRA’s latest move reflects a reduction in that kind of bilateral cooperation.
Brain drain
In 2019, a research report published by MarcoPolo, a think tank from the Paulson Institute in Chicago, pointed out that China faced a brain drain problem as most of its AI talents chose to remain in the US after completing their studies.
According to the report, 10 of the top 113 AI specialists selected for oral presentations at NeurIPS 2018, an annual AI conference, were born in China, while all were affiliated with or about to join US institutions. to connect.
It said 58% of China’s top researchers attended graduate school in the US, 35% attended graduate school in China and 7% in other countries such as Australia and the UK. It said 78% of Chinese AI researchers who completed graduate studies in the US were currently at US institutions, with only 21% at Chinese institutions.
Renrui Human Resources Technology, a Hong Kong-listed recruitment firm, said in a research report published in April this year that China will face a shortage of 5.5 million AI engineers by 2025, compared to 4.3 million in 2022. The report said that by 2025 it will be possible to employ only one in 2.6 Fill AI-related vacancies.
“China always emphasizes the development of AI, but I think the country has a serious shortage of mathematicians,” said Shi Yuzhu, chairman and founder of the Giant Network Group. said in a speech in Wuxi on Monday. “The shortage of computational mathematicians will continue to be a bottleneck for the future development of China’s AI sector.”
Shi said his company has been using AI technologies in recent years to develop most of its online games and to track player reactions.
He added that five years ago he donated 50 million yuan ($7 million) to his alma mater, Zhejiang University, encouraging him to attract more AI talent.
Technological gap
Last month, Tesla founder Elon Musk told CNBC that China is about 12 months behind the US in AI development. He said it is difficult to say if or when China can narrow the gap.
Elon Musk in Shanghai in November 2021. Photo: Xinhua
A Chinese IT columnist nicknamed Wang writes in a article that the US has cemented its leadership status in the AI sector over the past two years, especially after the Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November last year.
Wang says US companies have huge funds to build and train their AI programs. He says the English-speaking world also enjoys an advantage, having built up a large database of English documents over the past century.
Qiu Xipeng, head of the Fudan University research team developing a ChatGPT-like model called MOSS, said on May 31 that OpenAI’s GPT-4 is much more advanced than Chinese chatbots, which cannot catch up in a few months.
Zhang Zhen, founder of Beijing Whaty Technology, said breakthroughs in AI chatbots should be made by algorithms and have nothing to do with computing power.
Zhang said other companies can only catch up to GPT-3.5 within a year if they can hire OpenAI’s core software engineers.
On May 5, the Central Committee of Financial and Economic Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued a encounterchaired by party secretary Xi Jinping, called for boosting the AI sector.
Beijing municipal government issued one document on May 19 and two more on May 30 to support AI companies. Other cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu also announced their support measures.
Read: Nvidia is turning Taiwan into a world-class AI hub
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
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