Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development in China

Subin Liengpunsakul

Chinese Economy, 2021, vol. 54, issue 4, 235-248

Abstract: This paper examines artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainable development in China. The Chinese government has developed ambitious policies for global leadership in the field of AI and sustainable development. While China has made progress in several areas of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is lagging behind in achieving the SDGs overall, and AI technologies can bolster its progress toward SDGs. Using the latest data of 193 countries around the world, the paper also analyzes the implication of AI on sustainable development both at the global and regional levels. Broadly, a strong positive relationship between the government AI readiness and progress toward SDGs is observed. When classifying the SDGs into four dimensions including economy, society, environment, and partnerships, government AI readiness is found to have a strong relationship with economy followed by the society dimension, whereas there are no clear relationships with the environment and partnerships dimensions. To fully harness and scale the power of AI to meet the SDGs, the Chinese policy maker should align the potential AI technologies to address its SDGs gap, and identify the priority or targeted areas and design appropriate business models and incentive structures for scaling viable solutions. AI technologies, when implemented strategically and properly, can accelerate China’s progress toward SDGs.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10971475.2020.1857062 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:chinec:v:54:y:2021:i:4:p:235-248

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MCES20

DOI: 10.1080/10971475.2020.1857062

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Chinese Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().