The international AI City Challenge was established four years ago by organizers to encourage the development of artificial intelligence in real-world situations like counting cars passing through intersections and spotting accidents along freeways.The competition was won by teams from American universities and companies in the initial years. Three of the four competitions were won by Chinese companies last year.The AI City Challenge was won by Baidu and Alibaba, two Chinese tech giants. They beat competitors from almost 40 countries. In all five categories, Chinese universities or companies took first and second. In a competition to identify cars that have been stalled or are in accidents using freeway videofeeds, TikTok's creator ByteDance came second.These results are the result of years of Chinese government investment in smart cities. Many Chinese cities have pilot programs. Some estimates say that China is home to half the world's smart cities. Edge computing, cameras and sensors with 5G wireless connections are expected to increase the use of surveillance and smart-city technology.These competitions are useful for city planners and can also facilitate intrusive surveillance. It is useful for civic engineers to count the cars on the roads. However, it can also be used to track a vehicle through multiple live camera feeds. This form of surveillance is very effective. Participants were asked to identify cars using videofeeds. This year was the first year that descriptions were written in plain English. For example, a blue Jeep travels straight down a narrow road behind a red pickup truck.This competition comes at a moment of increasing tech nationalism, tension between the US & China, and growing concern about the power of AI. In 2019, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called China a major driver for AI surveillance around the world. It also stated that the US and China were the top two exporters of the technology. The Biden administration widened the scope of a Trump-era blacklist to include nearly 60 Chinese companies that were barred from investment from US financiers. In recent weeks, the US Senate approved the Competition and Innovation Act. It provides billions of dollars in investment in chips, AI and supply chain reliability. It calls for investments in smart cities, as well as expanding a partnership with the southeast Asian countries (except China).China's dominance of the smart-city competition may be marked with an asterisk. John Garofolo is a US government official who participated in the competition. He says that he saw fewer US teams this time. The organizers claim they don't track participants by country.Stan Caldwell serves as the executive director for Mobility21, a Carnegie Mellon University project that supports smart-city development in Pittsburgh. Caldwell is disappointed that China has twice the amount of research and development in terms of its GDP. This is a problem Caldwell believes is crucial to being competitive in emerging technology areas.He said that AI researchers from the US could also be eligible for grants such as the National Science Foundations Civic Innovation Challenge and the Department of Transportations Smart City Challenge. Last month's report found that the $50 million grant from the DOT to Columbus, Ohio did not deliver on its promise of creating the smart city of tomorrow.Because we want safety, efficiency, and sustainability to be improved, we want these technologies to continue to evolve. Caldwell adds that we want the technology to be developed here, and this will help our economy.Baidu and Alibaba spokespersons declined to comment. However, smart-city challenges could help both companies generate revenue. Alibaba's City Brain monitors more than 1,000 traffic lights in Hangzhou, home to the company. This city is home to 10 million people. City Brain helped emergency responders and reduced congestion in a pilot program.
