Twin girls pay by facial recognition on the computer at the Ant Financial booth during the 2016 Computing Conference at Yunqi Cloud Town in Hangzhou. (Photo : Getty Images)

China is now leading the AI industry in terms of biometric identification technology, especially in the field of speech recognition.



China Daily reported that speech recognition accounts for about 60 percent of venture capital investments in China AI industry while visual recognition has only 12.5 percent.




Biometric identification is at the center of the artificial intelligence industry. The technology enables automatic recognition of an individual's physiological and behavioral characteristics. By identifying people through fingerprints, face, palms and the eye, the technology helps prevent fraud, improved security and curb identity theft.



Industry research company International Data Corp said that AI application will have a huge impact on traditional industries as AI technologies are now being applied in agriculture, business, healthcare, industry, finance, education and security.



Currently, more advanced AI technology is being used in healthcare, finance, retail and smart cities. Innovation in these sectors has been made possible by technology.



According to IDC, the adoption and use of AI and cognitive systems in various industries is expected to increase worldwide revenues from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020.



The annual growth rate of the cognitive/AI solutions market is expected to rise 55.1 percent from 2016 to 2020.



Currently, the AI field has already been used by tech companies such as Google Inc, Facebook Inc, and Microsoft Corp and China's Internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.



In 2015, the worldwide AI market reached about 48.4 billion yuan ($7 billion), according to iResearch Consulting Group. China's AI market is estimated to reach 9.1 billion yuan by 2020.



According to IDC, the success of AI relies on commercialization although its growth was made possible by huge data, faster hardware and better algorithms.



"We have entered an AI era and will see huge changes to society and the economy as a result of AI," Wang Yue, senior research manager at IDC China, said, adding that AI companies have to cooperate to make the technology popular among people.



"Both the high-tech or traditional products will be embedded with AI technology. The AI Plus will drive the new round of economic development after Internet Plus," he added.

