China and the United States both regard artificial intelligence as a key technology for securing future economic and military advantages and have invested huge sums of money. This technology competition is no less than the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Some people call it a new technology "Cold War." ". What is Germany's strategy in this global artificial intelligence contest? What is different from China and the United States? What progress has been made so far? With these questions, the reporter recently participated in a dialogue in Berlin and listened to Dr. Damian Port, one of the heads of the German Artificial Intelligence Research Center (DFKI).
"Industrial 4.0" Platform Artificial Intelligence Platform
Port is director of the Deep Learning Capability Center of DFKI. He has long been engaged in multimedia analysis and data mining research and won the McKinsey Business Technology Award and Google Research Award. DFKI is the first large-scale research center established in Germany based on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. It is located in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Bremen, Berlin and other places. It is mainly responsible for applied basic research and product functions. And sample development, providing patent programs.
Port introduced that the “Industry 4.0” strategy proposed by the German government in 2013 covered artificial intelligence. The “Industry 4.0” strategy focuses on the use of the Internet and artificial intelligence technologies in manufacturing and other fields to connect people with machines, machines and machines, and to realize intelligent operations and intelligent production. Afterwards, the “Industry 4.0” platform established under the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research focused the R&D forces of research institutes, universities, and companies on a single platform, greatly advancing the development and application of artificial intelligence under this platform. The federal government has invested 200 million euros in this platform in the early stage, and has driven investment from industry and the private sector.
Artificial intelligence is closely related to cognitive systems and machines that can learn. Therefore, in September 2017, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research launched an artificial intelligence platform called “Learning System”. This is the second digital-themed R&D platform launched by the German government following the “Industry 4.0” platform. The plan is to develop and apply the “learning system” to make future work and production more flexible and save resources, improve work efficiency and quality of life, and promote sustainable development in the fields of economy, transportation, and energy supply. Wanka, Federal Minister of Education and Research, stated: "We must think about artificial intelligence from a new perspective. It will, like ‘Industrie 4.0’, bring profound changes and play a systemic role in Germany.”
Insufficient investment
The new German government mentioned artificial intelligence six times in its cabinet document, which is enough to show the degree of emphasis. However, compared with China and the United States, the current investment in Germany is still far from enough. The government's investment in projects is only a few hundred million euros. The Chinese government introduced a detailed artificial intelligence development plan in 2107 and will invest billions of dollars. In the corporate world, the United States’ Big Five (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon) and China’s BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) invest R&D costs of approximately 20 to 30 billion U.S. dollars.
Dr. Porter said that in addition to the lack of investment in Germany, there are clearly different development models in China and the United States. China and the United States have advantages in Internet technology. Both Big Five and BAT are giants of the Internet and use their IT and network advantages to drive the development of artificial intelligence. The advantage of Germany is high-end machinery manufacturing. Even in artificial intelligence research institutions such as DFKI, many researchers are from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. They can make very decent hardware, but are a bit slow in software development and application.
Lack of risk capital and privacy protection
Whether it is the Big Five or the BAT, there is a huge market and profit, so these giants have sufficient risk capital to invest in start-up companies that develop artificial intelligence. While German companies have high technology and product quality, they lack venture capital, and Germans are not adventurous in nature. Many AI start-ups in Germany are underfunded and have to be acquired by the United States or other countries. The loss of talents is also the biggest risk for the future development of artificial intelligence in Germany.
Due to the large population, large amount of data, and relatively easy data acquisition, China is relatively advantageous for the development of artificial intelligence applications based on big data. The small amount of data in Germany imposes stricter regulations on personal privacy and data protection. Therefore, it restricts the development and application of artificial intelligence products to some extent, but it also reduces the potential harm that artificial intelligence may bring to some extent. .
Dr. Porter said that there are many other differences between Germany and China and the United States in the development of artificial intelligence. For example, both China and the United States attach importance to the future application of artificial intelligence in the military field, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has Many artificial intelligence research projects, but Germany has no related projects.
The focus of research and development on German artificial intelligence is in the fields of industry, transportation, medical care and energy, as well as the research on the impact of artificial intelligence on privacy, law and ethics, and on the dual nature of new technologies and the development of a legal framework, which Germany is good at.
Germany is playing an increasingly important role in this global artificial intelligence competition. Germany and France have decided to establish a joint artificial intelligence research and development center to further strengthen the EU’s competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence. At present, in addition to DFKI, Germany, the Fraunhofer Association, the Max Planck Society, the Leibniz Association, and many colleges and universities all have artificial intelligence research projects. Siemens, Bosch and other large companies are among the best in the world. Dr. Porter believes that if countries can strengthen cooperation in artificial intelligence research and development, they will be more able to benefit humanity.
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