Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai says China’s AI growth is ‘amazing to watch’

New Delhi: Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said he expects China to be a “leader” in artificial intelligence (AI) and stressed the importance of US cooperation with China on both regulation and innovation, Bloomberg reported.

The scale of AI work in China is “amazing to see,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco. “In some ways, China is going to be at the forefront of AI and that’s for sure,” he said.

Pichai also said that for this cooperation it is necessary to build a good partnership.

“You can’t make progress in the long term between China and the US without talking to each other in depth on something like AI,” he said, citing his experience prioritizing technology at Google. “It should be an integral part of the process.”

Executives from major companies like Microsoft, Citigroup and Tesla are meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, other Asian leaders and US President Joe Biden this week.

Pichai stressed the importance of working together, comparing global cooperation on AI safety to tackling climate change. He explained that if something goes wrong with AI in one country, it affects everyone on the internet.

Pichai also discussed Google’s upcoming Project Gemini, a large language model designed to respond to prompts with natural language. He said the company’s current focus is on releasing a “1.0” version of Gemini “as quickly as possible” before introducing a more technologically advanced version. Pichai concluded by saying that the company was built for this moment of innovation.

“I am exceptionally excited for the innovation that lies ahead,” he said. “We built the company for this moment.