Alibaba founder Jack Ma speaks at the China (Shenzhen) IT Summit on April 2, 2017. [Photo by Chai Hua/China Daily]

The internet will profoundly impact retail, manufacturing, finance, technology and the resource industry, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has told the China (Shenzhen) IT Summit today. The essence of artificial intelligence is that it can learn at a very high speed based on the big data of computers, according to Tencent CEO Pony Ma. While Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, described the internet as just the appetizer, with AI the main course.