Bloomberg is reporting that Google will today announce plans to open a new artificial intelligence (AI) research facility in Beijing, China. The company did not say how many people it will hire. Fei-Fei Li, the chief scientist at Google’s cloud computing unit who will head the AI lab said, “It will be a small team focused on advancing basic AI research in publications, academic conferences and knowledge exchange.”
Google has sometimes had a rocky relationship with the Chinese government, which has blocked many of Google’s Web services. Some say this move could help the search giant repair relations with Chinese officials, who have previously announced that they would make AI a national priority.
