The Rise of AI and why Companies that Wait to Adopt AI May Never Catch Up (Harvard)

CNBC International this week published an in-depth and provocative video report on “China’s Rise in AI”, presenting and projecting a set of data points that highlight the framework for the AI competition between the US and China, and who is and will be ahead.

Take a look: China’s Rise in AI/CNBC International

Kai-Fu Lee, who this fall published his new book: AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, is featured in the report as saying that China by some measures is already ahead of the US.

His voice should carry some weight, given that he is a Carnegie Mellon PhD AI expert and former senior executive for Apple, Google and Microsoft, including as founding director for Microsoft Research Asia and president of Google China – he currently lives in China and his blog on Sina Weibo has over fifty million followers.

Also this week, of course, the daughter of Huawei’s founder was arrested in Canada at request of the US, another sign not only of the trade war/negotiations, but also the cyberwarfare/cybersecurity discussions around Huawei, which is pushing ahead with 5G and AI in its hardware globally.

Lastly, and also this week, the Harvard Business Review published a report entitled: “Why Companies That Wait to Adopt AI May Never Catch Up”, arguing that companies need to get started now – if they haven’t already, “and hope that it’s not too late.”

We agree. That’s why we spent 2018 developing the largest proprietary database of AI talent and leaders globally to assist our financial services clients.

As long-time Cisco CEO John Chambers writes in his new book: “the disruption will be so brutal that 40-plus percent of businesses today won’t be here 10 years from now.”

Let the AI games begin.