WAIC announces SAIL awards for AI talent

The organizing committee of the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Tuesday announced the setting up of awards to be decided by a panel of experts.

“The SAIL awards are not only an influential part of the WAIC but also an important carrier in the integration of industries, universities, researches and application in the field of artificial intelligence,” Zhang Ying, chief engineer of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The 2019 SAIL awards will have four categories — the Superior Award to be conferred to the highly praised and welfare-linked program; the Applicative Award for application program for improving social efficiency; the Innovative Award presented to the program that uses world's leading technologies in the field; and the Leading Award for pioneering basic theories, methods and models in the AI field.

The judges will include leading academicians such as Zhang Xu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of Shanghai branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xu Lei, chief scientist at the AI institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, professionals from leading enterprises and heads of investment institutions.

The SAIL awards are expected to facilitate the development of AI by pointing out a sound direction of the sector, according to Xu Lei.

“At present, 80 percent of the AI application in our country is limited to fields such as facial recognition, unmanned vehicles and robots. I hope the SAIL awards can cover a wider spectrum," Xu added.