Surging investment in artificial intelligence is giving the US an early advantage in the race to dominate a new era of robotics, according to investors and experts in an industry that is set to become one of the most strategically important.人工智能领域的投资者和专家称之为，该领域的投资攀升让美国在支配机器人新时代的竞争中守住先机，该领域将要沦为最不具战略重要性的行业之一。Recent advances in AI, particularly in a technique known as deep learning, have shifted robotics from its core industrial market into areas such as self-driving cars, fuelling debate over the benefits and threats posed by the rise of the robots.最近人工智能领域的变革（特别是在是在所谓深度自学的技术上），让机器人从核心的工业市场改向自动驾驶汽车等领域，这引发了有关机器人兴起所带给的益处和威胁的辩论。As the technology extends its reach beyond factory production lines, the US and China are poised to take the lead from Japan and Germany, which dominate traditional industrial robotics.随着这种技术不断扩大到工厂生产线以外，美国和中国将从支配传统工业机器人的日本和德国手中夺去领军地位。

Investment in the sector in the US more than doubled to $587m last year, according to CB Insights, a venture capital research firm. That is helping drive global growth of 17 per cent a year, according to research group IDC, whichprojects the robot market will almost double from $71bn to $135bn by 2019.根据风投研究机构CB Insights的数据，去年，美国在人工智能领域的投资减少逾一倍，至5.87亿美元。据研究机构IDC的数据，这协助推展全球投资每年快速增长17%，该机构预测，到2019年，机器人市场的规模将从710亿美元减少将近一倍，超过1350亿美元。“The most interesting things are in Silicon Valley or the US,” said Dmitry Grishin, a Russian internet entrepreneur and investor who has raised a $100m fund to invest in robot and other hardware start-ups. As low-cost robots move into more consumer and business uses, such as drones, China’s hardware manufacturing expertise will also make it a more significant player, he added.俄罗斯互联网创业者和投资人德米特里格里齐(Dmitry Grishin)回应：“最有意思的事情再次发生在硅谷或美国其他地方。

”他筹措了一支1亿美元的基金，用作投资机器人和其他创业型硬件企业。他补足称之为，随着低成本机器人改向更加多消费和商业用途（例如无人机），中国在硬件生产方面的专长将令其沦为一个更加最重要的参与者。Beijing’s booming demand for automation as it tries to claw its way up the manufacturing value chain has also fuelled efforts to build a local robot sector. However, most industry executives say it will take years for China to match technology from companies in Japan and other established manufacturers.此外，随着中国希望爬上制造业价值链，中国对自动化日益充沛的市场需求仍然推展其希望打造出本土机器人行业。

然而，多数行业高管回应，中国要跟上日本公司以及其他老牌制造商的技术还必须数年之幸。The threat from new AI and cloud technologies has prompted a scramble among established players not to get left behind. Japan’s Fanuc, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots, has announced plans to start connecting its 400,000 installed machines by the end of this year, to collect data about their operations and improve their performance.来自新的人工智能和云技术的威胁，促成老牌参与者争相行动起来以免领先。全球仅次于工业机器人制造商日本发那科(Fanuc)宣告计划，将在今年底之前开始将其40万台已加装机器联网，以搜集操作者数据并提高机器性能。

Japan’s manufacturing lead over the US should sustain its edge in industrial robots, said Junichi Hasegawa, chief strategy officer at Preferred Networks, a Japanese deep learning company that counts Fanuc — whose machines are all painted bright yellow — among its investors. “We can’t fight with information stored on the cloud, but the yellow robots are everywhere in the world and they gather data. If you ask whether Google can do the same, the answer is no,” he said.日本深度自学公司Preferred Networks首席运营官长谷川顺一(Junichi Hasegawa)回应，日本在制造业相对于美国的领先地位，应当不会承托其在工业机器人领域占有优势。该公司的投资者还包括发那科（发那科生产的机器人都被涂成亮黄色）。他回应：“我们竞争不过存储在云上的信息，但黄色机器人遍及全世界，他们不会搜集数据。如果你问谷歌(Google)否也能这么做到，答案是驳斥的。

”While US internet companies such as Google and Facebook have led the investment in deep learning, Silicon Valley has seen a wider start-up boom in AI and robotics. A collapse in the price of components, thanks to smartphone growth, has made it cheaper to launch robot companies, investors say.谷歌和Facebook等美国互联网公司仍然引导深度自学领域的投资，而硅谷则经常出现了人工智能和机器人领域的更加普遍创业潮。投资者回应，归功于智能手机的快速增长，零配件价格大幅度暴跌，这减少了创立机器人公司的成本。

So-called “intelligent” robots play to US strengths through new technologies and software culture, they added.他们补足称之为，通过新技术和软件文化，所谓的“智能”机器人充分发挥了美国的优势。“At its core, these companies need to be machine vision companies, that get better as they get more data,” said Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley investment firm.硅谷投资公司Andreessen Horowitz合伙人克里斯狄克逊(Chris Dixon)回应：“从本质来看，这些公司必须沦为机器视觉(MV)公司，提供的数据就越多，展现出就就越出众。”The new entrepreneurs rushing into the field are different from the hardware engineers who historically dominated the field, he added: “They don’t like to use the word robotics — they think of [it] as an electrical engineering mindset, versus…autonomy and AI.”涌进该领域的新的创业者与以往仍然支配该领域的硬件工程师有所不同，他补足称之为：“他们不讨厌用于‘机器人’这个词，他们指出……相对于自动化和人工智能，（它）是一种电子工程思维。

”The new technologies changing robotics are “available today” and advanced enough to have a disruptive impact across other industries, said Steve Jurvetson, an investor in Tesla Motors and SpaceX, companies led by Elon Musk.投资了埃隆马斯克(Elon Musk)旗下的特斯拉汽车(Tesla Motors)和SpaceX两家公司的史蒂夫尤尔韦特泊(Steve Jurvetson)回应，转变机器人的新技术“现在已准备就绪”，而且非常先进设备，不足以对其他行业产生颠覆性影响。

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