The 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference was held from Aug 29 to 31 in Shanghai. Thousands of tech companies flaunted their latest products and services there, as AI is being widely applied to areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, autonomous driving, education and finance. Although breakthroughs have been made in the development of chips and other core technologies, challenges still lie ahead for many Chinese tech companies. Many companies say core technology breakthroughs like chips and processors are some of the major challenges in the long term of expanding domestic and global markets.