earticle

영어

In the 4th Industrial Revolution era, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to promote global economic development. Thus, in order to promote the AI industry, each countries are not only establishing many policies and strategic plans for the promotion of AI, but also investing in huge research funds. According to many recent reports, China is moving ahead of the United States in many AI related-indices. Additionally, China is competent to take a leap into becoming an AI leading country within ten years. How can China, the last mover to suggested its AI industry development policy recently, to outrun the US, the strongest of competitor in advanced technology, and become a leading country in AI? Moreover what characteristics does it possess in the AI industry development policy process? This study was conducted to answer these research questions and to analyze the policy process for the “Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting Development of a New Generation Artificial Intelligence Industry(2018-2020),” a representative policy to promote the AI industry of China, from the perspective of policy studies. China, a socialist state, has implemented collaborative governance to promote the AI industry. It is made through the participation of numerous private companies and expert groups in the policy process, which was monopolized by the central government and state leaders. This governance, where the policy process is discussed through interactions between the public sector and private sector, could be explained in the perspective of policy network. Therefore, this study used the policy network model to examine the analysis frame, which consists of three variables: policy actor, interaction, and network structure, to review the policy characteristics of the AI industry promotion policy of China, and thereby, identified the success factors in the AI industry. The success factors of the Chinese AI industry were the participation of numerous private firms and expert groups in the policy process, collaborative interaction of official and unofficial actors through a various mediums, and the establishment of a fairly horizontal network structure of institutions through free access to the policy process. The study verified that the network model of the Chinese AI industry promotion policy has some characteristics of the policy community model and issue network model. It is not a sub-governmental model that is generally considered to be the characteristic of a socialist system. Policy network researchers argued that the policy community model and issue network model are applied to pluralist states where many actors participate in a policy process. The analysis result of this study, however, revealed that both models can be applied to socialist states as well. Thus, this study contributes in widening the scope of policy network analysis. However, this study could not analyze all the actors participating in the policy process. Furthermore, it could not utilize the quantitative research method to analyze the frequency of interactions between the actors. In addition, it focused only on the policy “Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting Development of a New Generation Artificial Intelligence Industry (2018-2020).” To overcome these limitations, it is necessary to use various methodologies, such as the qualitative method of in-depth interview and the use of quantitative data, and to analyze representative AI industry policies. Therefore, conducting follow-up research on the AI industry of China is expected.