Having watched America excel in the artificial intelligence sector for several years, China has finally begun to contribute to the industry, and their ideas could do powerful things when made reality.

In Beijing, researchers have received billions of dollars for developing artificial intelligence that will eventually control traffic, complete transactions, censor the internet, and infer national crime. The Chinese tech company Baidu has even employed professionals who have built military robots for the country.

Now that the US has slowed its research in the field after President Trump’s suggested budget cuts, China is catching up to its rival in terms of spending. The nation’s laboratories are dedicated to creating machines that can locate and store digital memories without human assistance. More importantly, China’s artificial intelligence machines will likely be able to predict terrorist attacks before they happen when they become more advanced.

While China has begun to put billions towards robotics research and development, the US will soon spend only $175 million. Money doesn’t always indicate superiority, however, as the country’s top-down strategy has proven ineffective before. Fortunately, all people of authority involved in the research are sharing information and discussing progress.

America and China’s research is currently intermingling and readily available, especially considering that fifty-one American companies have been financially aided by Chinese investors since 2011. Baidu may usher in a different approach with its autonomous vehicle design, facial recognition app, and impressive tonal speech differentiation program, attracting the eyes of Chinese research firms.

In the spring of last year, Google put its artificial intelligence AlphaGo up against a South Korean player in a game of Go, which originally began in China, and won the human versus machine battle. AlphaGo recently won again while playing against the world’s best player, which led China to refuse giving or receiving funds of any sort from Google.

As China races against America to create life-changing artificial intelligence, it only needs to be careful it doesn’t override human action and ensure that the pros outweigh the cons.