AI Talents are Making More Money than Bankers in China

Artificial Intelligence is no longer some grandeur idea plastered on the screens of our favorite Sci-Fi movies. AI is going to be a part of our future whether you like it or not. And, if you haven't noticed, some levels of AI already exist among some of your favorite pieces of technology.

As AI continues to advance at a rapid rate, both countries and organizations are eager to start "becoming leaders," in the new field.

Artificial Intelligence is the New Banker

China has announced that they want to be the Artificial Intelligence leader across the globe by 2030. But, there is a bit of a problem in China. There is massive lack of experienced AI talent in the job pool. Economically, the enormous demand for qualified AI workers far exceeds the current supply of talent.

Yet, this isn't such a problem for those working in AI. Graduates and experienced artificial intelligence talent are being bid on like hot commodities on the market. The demand has caused AI related salaries to skyrocket, 35% to 50%. Let's put that into perspective.

Big Business in Artificial Intelligence

If someone who were to complete their doctorate in China, your starting yearly salary would cap out around 121,000 yuan or about $18,275. Now if you were a fresh graduate coming out of school with a measly bachelors degree, you could make 300,000 yuan a year or even more, 500,000 yuan. Investment banks are eager to grab as much talent as possible. According to market research completed this past November, AI and Big Data are the two highest paid fields.

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You can see this crazy bubble in search engine, Baidu, hunt for talent. China's largest search engine operator is willing to pay machine learning scientists a base salary $220,000. Some of our favorite companies like Google, Apple and Goldman Sachs will pay more. “Today we still need technology experts to program the computers that increasingly automate our lives. Even the most powerful AI systems are still based on algorithms designed by humans, software written by humans and datasets curated and customized by humans", says tech expert and entrepreneur Kalev Leetaru.

The potential issues with artificial intelligence have spurred heated debates among CEO, tech evangelist and leaders. Most really do not seem to understand the role of highly intelligent AI in our future. No matter what happens, there currently is a need to make a tremendous amount of money creating our future robot overlords. What a time to be alive. Would you pursue a career in artificial intelligence?