China's research on artificial intelligence is moving full steam ahead, as the country's leading Internet company is now assembling a team of experts whose main goal is to turn imagination into reality.

Funded by Chinese Internet giant Baidu, the research project dubbed The Verne Plan, named after the French novelist Jules Verne, will be comprised of the world's best science fiction writers and scientists, reported the China Daily.  

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According to the Beijing-based Baidu, it has already invited six people to be part of the team's first group of advisers.

The team is composed of Andrew Ng, Baidu's chief scientist, and five science fiction writers, which include Liu Cixin, the first Asian author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel for his book "The Three-Body Problem."

Another well-known member of the China-supported study on artificial intelligence is David Brin, an award-winning American author.

In a statement, Baidu revealed that the project's pool of advisers will receive regular updates on how the company is developing AI technologies.

Members of The Verne Plan will also be in close communication with Baidu's research and development team to transform ideas into actual products.

"This is an innovative organization," Liu said in an interview. "Many ideas, along with innovative work, will be born here."

"The project will focus on artificial intelligence, and there will be an opportunity for us to work with scientists once the project is officially launched," he added. 

Meanwhile, Baidu's President Zhang Yaqin explained that artificial intelligence will provide the foundation that will empower traditional industries and enable them to meet the challenges of the future.

"Baidu has made some world-class achievements in the key subfields of artificial intelligence, such as image recognition, voice recognition, machine translation and self-driving cars," Zhang told China Daily in an interview.

China's aggressive foray into artificial intelligence draws inspiration from Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence program, which recently beat a South Korean world-class Go player.

Tagschina, Artificial Intelligence, Baidu artificial intelligence, Baidu