Baidu, the leading search engine in China, announced that it has hired "Google Brain" artificial intelligence (AI) creator Andrew Ng to head its new AI division in California.

Ng was a former chief at Google's Deep Learning project, an AI division of Google. During his time with the tech giant, the Deep Learning project gained international interest when Ng's project, "Google Brain," was able to make a computer teach itself to recognize a cat simply by watching videos and viewing pictures of the animal.

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Baidu announced in a statement Friday that Ng would be heading their new AI research lab based in Silicon Valley, California. Ng will also be overseeing the AI divisions in Beijing, specifically Baidu's Deep Learning Lab and Big Data Lab.

In anticipation of the new AI division headed by Ng, the Chinese company has already set aside a $300 million budget for the research.

In layman's terms, artificial intelligence can be explained as the ability of machines to mimic human brain functions, thereby demonstrating "intelligence" in recognizing different objects and learning to associate them in relation to the environment through logic and reasoning.

Recently, other tech companies have been gearing up for advanced research on artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Google reportedly acquired a major AI firm based in Britain for around $400 million.

According to The Asian Age, Facebook has also engaged the services of Yann Le Cun who is well-known for his research on AI technology.

Likewise, Chinese-based technological companies are also stepping up their efforts by scouting and hiring prominent AI researchers so they can compete and be at par with their western counterparts.

Ng is as a professor at Stanford University's Department of Computer Science and Department of Electrical Engineering. He is also currently serving as director at the university's AI Lab.

After he left Google, he co-founded and became CEO of Coursera, an online learning company.

TagsTech, Tech News, technology, AI, aritificial intelligence