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A comment on China speeds ahead of U.S. as quantum race escalates, worrying scientists.

Re:China speeds ahead of U.S. as quantum race escalates, wor... by nopinsight on Monday October 23, 2017 @02:32PM (#15535676)
China's advances in AI are impressive as well. A ranking based on publications at top conferences from 2012 to present (2017) has both Beijing and Tsinghua University in the world's top 5.

http://csrankings.org/#/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp

(The starting year in the link needs to be changed to 2012.)

Many of the top researchers in US academia are mainland Chinese. I wonder if they will be enticed back home when the Chinese government has managed to reduce the pollution in their major cities down to healthy levels. It appears that the salary for top people there, especially those with experience at major Western institutions, is comparable to those in the US in nominal terms, and the research funding is easier to get.

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Re:China speeds ahead of U.S. as quantum race escalates, wor... by Florin_Andrei on Monday October 23, 2017 @03:13PM (#15536072)
My bet is that there is someone, or some group, at a very, very high level in the Chinese government, who understand that these (quantum science, AI) are superhot science and technology areas, and agree that investments right now would pay off extremely well in the future.

Central planning has downsides - but apparently some advantages too.

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Re:China speeds ahead of U.S. as quantum race escalates, wor... by nopinsight on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:34PM (#15538779)
Many of their top leaders have engineering background. Xi Jinping himself studied chemical engineering. Those who studied liberal arts often have very strong academic records or a PhD. Li Keqiang, the premier, is an economics PhD.
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