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When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese tech companies, thoughts often\u00a0begin and end with Baidu. But\u00a0Tencent, Asia\u2019s second highest-valued tech company behind Alibaba, has reminded the world that it too is\u00a0investing in the field.<\/p>\n
Search giant Baidu\u00a0was one of the first to make a major\u00a0commitment to\u00a0deep learning.\u00a0It\u00a0spent over $2.9 billion on R&D over a 2.5 year period, according to Bloomberg<\/a>, and currently has more than\u00a01,300 specialists working on a variety of technologies that include AI and augmented reality. Baidu, however, suffered a blow when its chief scientist Andrew Ng, who heads up\u00a0its U.S.-based research team, announced his departure\u00a0last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s one more exit to add to that list after\u00a0Tencent\u00a0announced today that it poached machine learning researcher Tong Zhang<\/a>, who\u00a0heads up Baidu\u2019s Big Data Lab,\u00a0to lead its own AI Lab.\u00a0The Shenzhen-based lab\u00a0is focused on computer vision, speech recognition,\u00a0and natural language processing.<\/p>\n Tencent, best known for WeChat, China\u2019s top messaging app, announced the lab last April. It said today that it has 50 AI specialists\u00a0housed there. Aside from that development facility,\u00a0Zhang \u2014 who received a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford and has worked at IBM and Yahoo \u2014\u00a0will lead a team of 200 product engineers that\u2019s tasked with converting AI advances into tangible\u00a0features and updates for\u00a0Tencent\u2019s\u00a0apps and services.<\/p>\n \u201cTencent is looking at four areas for AI application: content, social, online games\u00a0and cloud services. At present, over a hundred Tencent products, including Weixin\/WeChat,\u00a0QQ and Tian Tian Kuai Bao, a Tencent news app, use AI technology,\u201d the company added.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a similar goal to Baidu, which got serious on deep learning when it hired Ng, a co-founder of online learning startup Coursera, in 2014.<\/p>\n A\u00a0world renowned AI expert,\u00a0Ng previously made his name when it helped found Google\u2019s deep learning team, Google Brain.\u00a0Ng said in his departure note<\/a> that Baidu\u2019s AI efforts had been felt across its \u201cexisting businesses in search, advertising, maps, take-out delivery, voice search, security, consumer finance and many more\u201d areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe team is stacked up and down with talent; I am confident AI at Baidu will continue to flourish,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n For now, Tencent is talking up its AI prowess\u00a0in the field of Go, the strategic game that\u00a0Google made its mark on when its AI (AlphaGo) triumphed over world champion Lee Seedol last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tencent said its \u2018Fine Art\u2019 AI, which was developed by 13 Tencent engineers,\u00a0defeated high ranking Japanese Go player\u00a0Ryo Ichiriki last week. All in all, the firm said the AI has taken on 100 \u201crenowned human players,\u201d winning 406 of over 500 rounds that it has competed in.<\/p>\n Featured Image: Qilai Shen\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/11\/gettyimages-598020184.jpg?w=680\")
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese tech companies, thoughts often\u00a0begin and end with Baidu. But\u00a0Tencent, Asia’s second highest-valued tech company behind Alibaba, has reminded the world that it too is\u00a0investing in the field. Search giant Baidu\u00a0was one of the first to make a major\u00a0commitment to\u00a0deep learning.\u00a0It\u00a0spent over $2.9 billion on R&D over a 2.5… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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