Zhu Mingjie, founder and CEO of CraiditX Technology

A1: We specialize in applying AI technology to the financial industry and helping traditional financial institutions tackle challenges brought up by the wealth of incoming data.

A2: Financial institutions are churning out tons of structured and unstructured data every day. For instance, China UnionPay has issued 4.3 billion cards. With more than 900 million cardholders, its everyday business incorporates over 10 million transactions, and that translates into nearly 70 million pieces of transaction data, with core data exceeding terabyte levels. Consequently, its traditional data processing system is under great pressure. Increasing the workforce does not help to address the problem. Only by using products developed with AI technology can those financial companies cut down costs and raise efficiency.

A3: We have gained much experience in AI technology and its practical application in merely three years. In terms of technology, we are the first AI company to employ deep learning to analyze human behavior and conduct risk evaluation in the field of financial transactions. We use graph convolutional networks to identify risks, and utilize natural language processing in a commercialized manner to reach that goal.

In addition, we cooperate with leading businesses in different financial subfields to explore new application scenarios. All in all, the core competitiveness of AI companies is not the publication of academic papers per se, but the use of technology to solve practical problems.

A4: AI technology is not a panacea. It needs to combine industrial experience and understanding to speed up the development of a given sector. Those successful cases of AI application will encourage more businesses to use the technology. What's more, unlike the to-consumer market, AI's development in the business-to-business market will not skyrocket in a short period. We need accumulation with strong determination and enough patience in the long run to form our own technical and business barriers.

A5: The Shanghai municipal government has been committed to the construction of AI hubs for a long time. Such determination is most exemplified by a slew of measures rolled out to bolster the industry's development and we have received constant support from the local authorities.

During the upcoming 2019 World AI Conference, we, together with Shanghai Jiaotong University, will launch a project called the Class-A Plan to focus on the most promising young people in the field of AI, including doctoral students, scholars and startup founders. We will provide them with an accelerator in the academic or industrial path of AI. The project has also received attention from the municipal government.