China's AI ambitions far exceed those of regional rivals
Chinese universities are far outpacing their Asian rivals when it comes to AI research. In a recent list of the top 100 most-cited research papers on AI globally, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the third most-cited institution on AI research, with Microsoft in first place. China's regional rivals came far behind, with Japan and South Korea's highest entries at 64th and 97th places respectively. China has recently lured back talent from the US, offering massive financial incentives to work in a thriving, competitive environment, and of the top 100 institutions, 15 are Chinese. 

TOKYO -- In what might be regarded as testament to China's keen interest in artificial intelligence, two of the country's universities were among the leaders in a list showing sources of the most frequently cited research papers in the AI field.

The list, compiled from an analysis of scholarly publications by The Nikkei and Elsevier -- the Amsterdam-based giant of academic publishing -- was created by counting the number of research papers that were cited between 2012 and 2016. A high citation count is generally considered to be an indicator of research quality.