Chinese firm wins AI contest amid nation's race for military edge over US

Washington

A RESEARCH arm of the US intelligence community just wrapped up a competition to see who could develop the best facial recognition technology. The challenge: identify as many passengers as possible walking on an aircraft boarding ramp.

Of all the entries, it was a Chinese startup company called Yitu Tech that walked away with the US$25,000 prize this month, the highest of three cash awards.

The competition was one of many examples cited in a report by a US-based think-tank about how China's military might leverage its country's rapid advances in artificial intelligen…