Photo/VCG

Nov. 19 (NBD) -- As China's artificial intelligence (AI) market grows rapidly and companies increasingly adopt AI solutions for their businesses, the need for highly experienced, PhD-educated, and technically-adept talents shows no signs of stopping any time, according to "Global AI Talent Report 2018" written by Jean-François Gagné (JF Gagné), a veteran AI entrepreneur and former Chief Product Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at JDA Software.

Yu Dian, researcher at Tencent Research Institute echoed his view, noting that the huge shortage of AI talents has been pushing up salaries for new graduates, PhD-educated graduates in particular.

Tencent's "2017 Global AI Talent White Paper" found that the average monthly pay for an AI-related position stood at 25,800 yuan (3,725.9 U.S. dollars) in 2017, well above that of regular technical jobs.

In order to draw talents, some companies increased salaries for fresh graduates by 10-20 percent compared with the year of 2017, and the annual pay for a fresh PhD graduate jumped to 800,000 yuan (115,531.8 U.S. dollars) this year from 500,000 yuan (72,207.4 U.S. dollars), news outlet Yicai learnt from the High-Tech Talent & Intelligence Exchange Exhibition of the China Hi-Tech Fair 2018 held in Shenzhen last week.

It's noticed at the exhibition that thirst for talents have been pushing enterprises into universities to snap up AI-related graduates through their tutors or laboratories. And, the doctoral graduates are more popular than master-degree graduates, as the former have been equipped with relevant expertise when doing projects with their tutors.

The AI talent gap revealed at the exhibition is an epitome of the global AI talent landscape.

According to JF Gagné's report based on broadest LinkedIn measures, there are roughly 22,000 PhD-educated researchers in the entire world who are capable of working in AI research and applications, with only 3,074 candidates currently looking for work, whereas Tencent's report found that millions of AI professionals are needed.

Against such background of talent scarcity, Chinese Ministry of Education this April issued a detailed action plan on how the country will promote AI development in universities and colleges. The action plan stipulated that by 2020, a total of 100 "AI + X" interdisciplinary majors should be established and 50 AI colleges, research institutes and interdisciplinary research centers should be set up by 2020.

Tech companies also sought for cooperation with universities and colleges in China in nurturing a talent pool.

For instance, manufacturer of semiconductor computer circuits Intel has partnered with Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and other Chinese elite universities in areas including basic framework and platform of AI, models and optimization algorithms and simulation environment.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn