DDN Business Insider | Age of AI: How will artificial intelligence reshape global economy?

Editor's note: Last week, the chipmaker Nvidia has seen an astonishing rise in the value of its shares, becoming the second-most valuable company in the US market. Apple and many other tech giant's annual developer conferences all focused on AI. What is the future landscape of AI? What are the main areas where the changes will take place? Regarding this topic, we have invited Wu Wei, Chief Executive Officer and Partner of Hung Sing Securities Limited, Yu Fenghui, economist, expert of the Top 100 Hong Kong Listed Companies Research Center, and new finance expert, and Pan Kefeng, Senior Engineer of National Information Technology Security Research Center to bring their comments and analysis.

【Anchor】Hello everyone, welcome to DDN Business Insider. I am Yunfei Zhang. Last week, the chipmaker Nvidia has seen an astonishing rise in the value of its shares, becoming the second-most valuable company in the US market. Apple and many other tech giant's annual developer conferences all focused on AI. What is the future landscape of AI? What are the main areas where the changes will take place?

Regarding this topic, we have invited Wu Wei, Chief Executive Officer and Partner of Hung Sing Securities Limited, Yu Fenghui, economist, expert of the Top 100 Hong Kong Listed Companies Research Center, and new finance expert, and Pan Kefeng, Senior Engineer of National Information Technology Security Research Center to bring their comments and analysis.

Hello. Today the large technology companies are all focusing on AI, first of all, Mr. Wu, what do you think will happen in this field in the future?

【Wu】A new era has just begun, and so has the competition. But (this area) is divided into several levels, first is the hardware of AI. Currently, the one with the highest share in the hardware-driven market is definitely NVIDIA. However, with the development of technology, there are uncertainties about whether GPUs will be replaced in the future.

Second, the large model, including a variety of language models, like ChatGPT, Gemini, and some of the foundational models. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and domestic players like Huawei, are all getting involved. Third, the application of AI. At present, there is competition from the upstream to the downstream, and from the hardware to the large model and the application of AI.

【Anchor】Alright. In fact, not only tech companies, but also major nations in the world are making significant efforts in the field of AI. Mr. Yu, what do you think the future holds for AI development at the national level?

【Yu】Indeed, technology giants and different countries like the US, China, Europe, Korea, Japan, and India, their focus on AI marks the arrival of a new era. This era is real and tangible.  Compared to the birth of the Internet in the late 1990s, which actually began in the 80s and started to spread in the 90s, the AI era is even more profound. The impact of this new era will be even greater.

At the same time, it also signals the formation of a highly complex (environment), especially a dynamically competitive environment. In my opinion, the competition is not only in technology but also in algorithms and computing power.

We need to recognize that the US tech companies and the entire US' position in AI development is absolutely number one in the world, and China is close behind. But in the future, China will be catching up very fast, so it is possible that we will be on par with the US in a few years. But I cannot say that we will surpass these US tech companies for now.

【Anchor】Alright. Mr. Yu mentioned the current status and future trends of AI development in China and the US. Mr. Pan, what is your view on this? What are the competitive advantages of Chinese tech companies?

【Pan】Overall, we could say that our country has both strengths and weaknesses. The strength is that we have a wider range of applications compared to overseas AI scenarios. To a certain extent, we have more data for all kinds of training and make it applicable to different scenarios. So the results we achieve in AI practice will be more extensive, more sophisticated, and more fully engineered. As for the main advantage of the foreign countries, first, their ecosystem and industrial chain are very complete. Compared to China, its entire AI industry chain is more complete. For example, its computing power, models, and scientific research are more systematic.

Second, in terms of research in technical science, especially AI algorithms, arithmetic, and AI basic modeling theory, foreign countries far surpass our country. These are the main differences between our two counties

【Anchor】Alright. Mr. Wu, how do you assess the current state of AI development in Chinese tech companies compared to tech giants like Apple and Google?

【Wu】In terms of the foundational model and AI application, it is undeniable that we are still a follower instead of a leader. Especially for GPUs, international companies like AMD or NVIDIA are at the forefront. But in terms of the foundational model and AI application, combined with practical situations in our country, I believe a lot of them are being used. But the efficiency of R&D reached a bottleneck. Chip manufacturing should also be strengthened. Because in the future, whether it's the development of robotics or AI, or the requirements for the yield of the chip, accuracy, or energy consumption, will all rise.

【Anchor】Alright. Nowadays, there is a saying that "whoever gets AI gets the world". Mr. Wu, what do you think is the reason why AI can fundamentally change the world?

【Wu】AI indeed greatly accelerated the efficiency of unraveling the mysteries of natural and social sciences from a database perspective and also accelerated the efficacy of a variety of scientific research and development. But the AI development is at a preliminary stage, so the accuracy and efficiency of the finished product are yet to be tested.

Second, of course, there are concerns about the impact on employment and the issue of AI's self-awareness. But I think under the current technological conditions, these concerns are still quite distant. Although these concerns are valid, they are still far from becoming a reality. Currently, it is more appropriate to think of AI as a tool that can help us to improve work efficiency, learning efficiency and research efficiency.

【Anchor】Alright. Mr. Yu, what do you think is the reason for the view that "whoever gets AI gets the world"?

【Yu】The reason for this argument lies in AI's potential ability to reshape the socio-economic structure. This is remarkable, so many people think that AI can greatly improve the efficiency of society, and solve many problems, including the diagnosis of diseases, and environmental protection. The opening of the smart chip era is the penetration of the big model into people's everyday lives, including me who is also a beneficiary. I used to think that AI is very far from our lives, it's only used by big corporations and it's out of reach for us to use AI on an individual level. With the development of the large model, AI is now around us, at our fingertips and on our smartphone screens. The large model has pushed AI to everyone, to our fingertips and to the smartphone screens, which in turn has led to the development of AI. That's why AI has never developed as fast as it is today. And the new chapter that will usher in the age of intelligence has truly arrived.

【Anchor】Looking at the current state of AI development, Mr. Yu, what areas do you think will be prioritized for the changes it will bring to the world?

【Yu】I believe that AI's transformative power will first and foremost manifest in data-intensive computing sectors. Industry like this has a higher degree of dependency (of data computing). In particular, the manufacturing industry will transform from a labor-intensive industry into a capital-intensive industry through AI, to achieve personalized and large-scale customized production. That's why the impact on the manufacturing industry will be great. In the field of transportation, autonomous driving will change the way we travel. In the medical and healthcare field, AI as a secondary diagnosis, personalized treatment plans, etc., will be popularized.

【Anchor】Alright. Regarding the changes brought by AI, Mr. Pan, in which areas do you think the focus will happen?

【Pan】Looking at the current development of AI, it is not possible to say which particular fields (it will affect). I would say it's in every area. For example, the Pay-By-Face system, intelligent translation, and the robots we use in industrial production, auto-navigation, and the automatic identification of graphics we often use in the aviation field. Even in our daily lives, such as checking attendance at work and so on, these are all applications of AI technology. The emergence of these technologies is changing our world and life.

The most common things in our daily life, such as ride-hailing, have seen application of a large number of AI technologies, including the matching of passengers and drivers, and automatically recommending passenger orders to the drivers. As well as the test of intelligent driving and so on, these are a new way of life embodied by the development and application of AI.

【Anchor】Alright. Mr. Yu, what impact do you think this will have on global economic development?

【Yu】The Fourth Industrial Revolution was first proposed by Angela Merkel, the (ex-) Chancellor of Germany. The development of smart manufacturing may cause drastic adjustments in the labor market, so this requires active policy responses. Of course, the key here is to increase training and social security, which are things that the government should do. This is also about public utilities, which the government has to take the lead. Geographically, it is possible to accelerate global economic development, exacerbating inequalities and the disparity between the rich and the poor, including the disparity in the North and the South. So some areas will become more technologically advancing, and talents and capital will flow to these areas. But at the same time, remote working, the application of cloud technology, may also promote the economic development of these remote areas. On the one hand, it will narrow the geographical gap. On the other hand, it will widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

【Anchor】Mr. Pan, what do you think?

【Pan】In many areas, using AI means lower costs and higher productivity. In situations involving repetitive work, the demand for product efficiency is actually very high. Whoever has higher productivity will naturally have lower cost compared to their prices. Lower prices, to a certain extent, will naturally affect the world's economic landscape.

AI is now being integrated with various traditional industries, such as manufacturing and service industries. When AI is integrated with these industries, it improves the efficiency of the industry and reduces the industry's daily production and output costs. This means that the industry will have a competitive advantage over its peers who have not been transformed by AI. From the technical point of view, whoever masters AI and completes the transformation of the AI industry will be the lowest value. Consequently, they will be better positioned to export their product value to the world.

【Anchor】Alright. How do you think people should respond to the arrival of the AI era, Mr. Yu?

【Yu】For the average consumer, embracing AI means improving your digital literacy. At the same time, it is important to pay attention to personal data security and privacy protection. I have a different view on this point. That is, while collecting personal data and ensuring data security are important, in China, most data is anonymized and sensitive information is filtered out. The collected information is anonymized and will not affect personal data security or infringe on personal privacy. We sometimes over-emphasize data security and privacy protection.

We often say that big data is a gold mine. How to develop this gold mine, utilize the data in production practices, decision-making processes and to improve the daily lives of people? Therefore, we must be more objective regarding this relationship.

【Anchor】All right, thank you to you all. That's all for this episode. Remember to follow us on YouTube or download our APP. I'm Yunfei Zhang, thanks for watching, and see you next time.