China sets goal of rapidly surpassing US as artificial intelligence race heats up

An employee walks past signage displayed inside Iflytek Co.'s regional headquarters in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. Iflytek, which specializes in voice recognition, is collaborating with Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd. on a network of health centers that will rely partly on artificial intelligence for diagnosis and treatment. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

WASHINGTON: When a Google computer program beat the world's best player of an ancient Chinese board game last May, it might have seemed like an incremental milestone. 

But for some, the success of the program known as AlphaGo marked more than a man-vs-machine clash. It set up a broader race between China and the United States over artificial intelligence, a competition that could mould the future of humankind just as the widespread arrival of electricity did in the last century.