A 75-year-old Harvard grad is propelling China’s AI ambitions

The "Yao Class” – an undergraduate computer science course at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, alma mater to President Xi Jinping and many of China’s ruling elite – has exerted a profound impact on the country’s technology pioneers and growing scientific prowess. — Background vector created by rawpixel.com - www.freepik.com

At a time when the US and China are divided on everything from economics to human rights, artificial intelligence is still a point of particular friction. With the potential to revolutionise everything from food production and health care to financial markets and surveillance, it’s a technology that sparks both optimism and paranoia.

One of the field’s most influential figures is Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, whose education and professional life have straddled the world’s two biggest economies. China-born and Harvard-trained, Yao is his country’s only recipient of the Turing Award, computer science’s equivalent of a Nobel Prize. After almost 40 years in the US, he returned to China in 2004.