Many consider artificial intelligence a key part of this industrial revolution. In Shanghai, leaders and scholars are discussing the new technology at a conference. CGTN's Xu Mengqi got some insight from an executive at Microsoft.  

1. Artificial intelligence is all the rage right now. As a well-established company in the tech industry, what is your assessment of artificial intelligence, and the direction it's heading?

HARRY SHUM, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT MICROSOFT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH GROUP "So A.I. has really progressed a lot over the last 60+ years, esp recently A.I. has become somewhat really useful and we can apply A.I. technologies into many industry applications, and in our lives and at work. The reason for that, in my opinion, is three-fold: first of all is the availability of huge amount of data, largely generated from Internet and through more and more Internet of Things; and the second reason is that computing power continues to increase esp with the help of the cloud. And the third and last reason is because of the incredible breakthrough in new algorithms, in particular in deep learning and deep neural nets. So this is why in the last seven or eight years people have paid a huge amount of attention and many of us believe that it is really AI disruption happening."

2. You mentioned in your keynote speech that you believe the influence of artificial intelligence will be pervasive. Just how pervasive will it be, for individuals, businesses and industries?

HARRY SHUM, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT MICROSOFT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH GROUP "I certainly believe that A.I. is really disrupting practically every vertical industry, whether you are in transportation, health, or agriculture. Let me give you a couple of examples: If you are thinking about transportation, it's already happening. Autonomous driving, I think we've seen some early signs of success. Of course, it's gonna take many years, not only to develop the technology, but also to understand the regulation, or even law, how to govern the progress of A.I. in that field."

3. The large amount of data that the Chinese population generates, is widely accepted as a unique advantage that China has in A.I. development. How important is China for tech companies such as MS?

HARRY SHUM, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT MICROSOFT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH GROUP "Indeed Chinese consumers generate huge amount of data. If you look at the consumer Internet, now we have absolutely the biggest consumer Internet market around the world, even those mobile internet applications, I would say China is in many ways leading, whether it's communication tools or e-commerce. So that's actually true, but I would also point out as we talk about data, it's not only data generated by humans, it's also more and more huge amount of data generated by devices. So I think that is where we'll see even more increase, whether it's actually the machines, or engines, all those things, big and small. It's very important for MS or any multinational companies to go to where the market is, to really follow your customers, so that the technologies we develop and even more importantly the products we produce will cater for those people. So that's absolutely important for all the multinationals to look at the Chinese market and excel here."