China’s AI Strike Force on COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines the methodical and highly efficacious manner in which China deployed its comprehensive AI (artificial intelligence) strategy to significantly stymie the spread of COVID-19 across the country.

Design/methodology/approach

This study deploys a case-study approach, supported by the literature on existing and emerging AI and related technologies.

Findings

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed to the world the remarkable progress China has made in AI and its accompanying ecosystem. More importantly, this outlier event demonstrates the surgical, hybridised manner in which China has utilised these emerging technologies in containing its spread (i.e. “AI Epidemiological Targeting”) and set itself on the path to unleashing their full potential (i.e. “AI Symbiosis Paradigm”). Nonetheless, China still needs to harness its rapidly advancing AI prowess in identifying COVID-19's pathogenesis and developing a proven vaccine.

Originality/value

This study presents a pioneering effort to analyse the deployment of AI and its ecosystem in the “war” against COVID-19.

Citation

Wong, W.K.O. (2021), "China’s AI Strike Force on COVID-19", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 250-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-04-2020-0056