China’s National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen launched a testbed for artificial intelligence (AI) experiments on Friday.
Project officials, cited by Chinese news portal Xinhua, said the AI system, named Tai, supports the research, development and application testing for AI inventions.
“Tai is capable of dealing with large-scale and complex scenarios,” the article reported. “Scientists have built an EB-level intelligent data management and analysis system for high-energy physics, as well as simulation of AI scenarios in real business situations and an AI-powered weather forecast platform.”
Simulating the verification environment for future smart devices is another main goal, according to center head Feng Shengzhong.
The new testbed has a number of backers, including the Bench Council, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Software Testing Center under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as Alibaba and Cambricon. The Shenzhen center and the Beijing Academy of Frontier Sciences and Technology are jointly responsible for Tai’s operation and maintenance.
China has previously expressed its intention to become a world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030 as part of Beijing’s ‘Made in China 2025’ blueprint. South China Morning Post has reported that the first step in that plan is to level up to the U.S. by 2020 by focusing on big data intelligence, autonomous intelligence systems, swarm intelligence, hybrid enhanced intelligence, and AI foundational theories.