TheMindUnleashed.com shares:
A Chinese internet giant called Tencent (one of the largest corporations in China) recently announced that they would build an artificial intelligence lab in Seattle.
To understand what forces steer the trajectory of our future now, and where we will be in the future, we must pay attention to moves like this.
Few available details can be found from articles like this one from Technology Review:
“One of China’s biggest tech companies, Tencent, is establishing an AI research lab in Seattle, demonstrating a growing determination to master a technology that looks set to define the future of many industries.
Tencent is already one of China’s dominant tech companies. It operates the hugely successful mobile chat app WeChat—which boasts over 889 million active users in China—along with lots of other social tools, e-commerce services, games, and the like.
Based in Shenzhen, a manufacturing hub in the southeastern part of the country, Tencent has the potential to become a key player in the development and commercialization of artificial intelligence. The company has the money, the reach, and the data to attract strong researchers.”
For more perspective, a little research on Tencent reveals they recently spent over a billion dollars on shares of Elon Musk’s company Tesla.
According to Tech Crunch:
“Tencent, Asia’s second highest valued tech firm, has bought a five percent share in Tesla. According to a filing, the Chinese firm scooped up 8,167,544 shares for around $1.7 billion to become one of Tesla’s largest shareholders.”
Elon is known for expressing concerns about artificial intelligence but his actions consistently show a different intention. Earlier this year he made headlines about wanting to merge man with machine, with articles such as this one from the Verge reading:
“SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is backing a brain-computer interface venture called Neuralink, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, which is still in the earliest stages of existence and has no public presence whatsoever, is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence.
Read more HERE.
Source: http://themindunleashed.com/2017/05/chinese-internet-giant-opens-artificial-intelligence-lab-us-spent-billion-tesla-shares.html