China’s core AI industry to hit $145 billion by 2030 as data availability fuels growth

The value of China's core Artificial Intelligence (AI) industries could exceed 1 trillion yuan ($145.47 billion) by 2030, with that of AI-enabled industries more than 10 trillion yuan, according to a new report from Bloomberg Intelligence.



Titled "China's great tech leap forward," the report said that China's push to commercialize AI technologies, supported by the rollout of the world's biggest 5G network, could position the country as a global leader in technology and innovation.



"Based on the growth trajectory in the past decade, China may overtake the US in global technology-patents share by 2025," said the report.



AI-related industries may exceed 6 percent of China's GDP by 2030, it said.



Bloomberg analysts said China's abundance of data may fuel fast growth of the industry.



China's breakneck pace of consumer-lifestyle digitization potentially gives researchers unique access to Chinese-language data generated by its 1.4 billion people as they go about their daily activities both online and offline.



Vey-Sern Ling, senior industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said China may overtake its global peers in the commercialization of AI technologies, as large amounts of capital are likely to continue pouring into the industry.



According to Tsinghua University, private funding for Chinese AI-related companies in 2017 totaled $27.7 billion, equivalent to 70 percent of global investments in the industry.



Data showed China's cumulative venture-capital investments in AI startups had already caught up with the US by 2016.



Ling, lead analyst of the report, said that top-down support is an important factor for the industry's fast development in China, as well as the multi-faceted user data and funding available.



"I don't think anywhere else in the world you have the government so strongly behind [AI], identifying it as a pillar of technology," Ling said.





