(Yicai Global) July 24 -- Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a golden opportunity for boosting China's social and economic development. As an emerging industry, it has a very promising future. All players along the AI industry chain and even some external organizations should act patiently and develop AI and other related businesses based on concrete development and research, instead of following their herd instinct.

The State Council revealed the enormous potential of AI in its 'Notice on Distributing the New-Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan' released on July 20. The Chinese government will offer long-term support focusing on the development of advanced AI technologies in a bid to stimulate revolutionary and 'disruptive' breakthroughs in AI theories and research methodology, tools and systems, the document said. China will take the lead in introducing major new-generation AI technology projects, and looks to create a world-class artificial intelligence market by 2030, per the document. The total volume of core AI businesses will exceed USD150 billion (CNY1 trillion), driving growth in peripheral industries by more than CNY10 trillion.

The AI era is coming at a pace faster than expected. Some recent events offer a glimpse into how artificial intelligence will reshape our lives in future. As part of the public debut of the AI platform developed by tech giant, Baidu Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDU], its founder Robin Li road-tested the company's prototype driverless car on Beijing's Fifth Ring Road. More recently, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA] unveiled a cashier-free supermarket featuring biometrics security and automatic payment technologies where consumers can pick up their purchases and leave without waiting in a checkout line. The news went viral on social media sites.

AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence program of Alphabet Inc. [NASDAQ:GOOGL], has pulled off sensational victories over top Go players such as South Korea's Lee Sedol and China's Ke Jie.

Teachers also now apply the 'AI + education' model to automate learning assessment for individual pupils based on lesson progress analysis. The automatic machine assessment model significantly improves teaching and learning productivity, and reduces unproductive after-class exercises by over 50 percent, making individualized education a reality.

The 'AI + health care' model achieves hierarchical diagnosis and treatment by substantially enhancing the professional skills of frontline doctors.

Big Data, cloud computing and machine learning development has reached new levels in recent years. Industrialization and commercialization of these technologies has led to an AI boom. About half of the 2,000 largest companies in the world will be able to independently develop digitally-augmented products and services by 2020, executives at Intel Americas Inc. [NASDAQ:INTL] noted. They believe that the social value of AI is akin to that of the agricultural, industrial and digital revolutions. We are now in the best age, but it is also a time of severe challenges.

With its huge population, China boasts a highly developed mobile internet market, enormous data resources and endless AI commercial applications. The country is well-equipped to realize more breakthroughs in AI development, and is widely expected to be a global leader in this field.

So how should Chinese companies respond to the 'AI boom'? They should act patiently and learn the lessons from the photovoltaic industry.

Many market insiders think that certain parts of the AI industry are already overheating. Investors are rushing into the AI market fearing that they may miss out on unprecedented investment opportunities if they move more sluggishly than others, but returns on investment are turning out to be much slower than they expected. Excessive competition will only harm the AI industry's long-term development. Talent competition serves to illustrate this point. When several firms started competing for AI doctoral graduates from a leading Chinese university, the starting salaries they offered soared from CNY400,000 to an incredible CNY 900,000 per year overnight, media reported. One expert noted that investors must respect the current stage of development in the AI industry. Artificial intelligence has not created a new system, and its development depends on industry upgrade and optimization, and thus investors must not let themselves be misled by overhyped concepts.

Companies should develop AI businesses based on concrete research and development operations, and remain alert to the tendency for short-sighted investment. The US is the first mover in AI technology. Chinese firms still straggle in crucial equipment, high-end chips, key products and systems, basic materials, components, software and interfaces. For China to close the gap with the US will thus take time.

We should have lofty ideals and passion at times of great changes, but we should not be idealistic and allow passion to blind us while making decisions. Entrepreneurs are those who can strike a subtle balance between passion and sensibility.