(Yicai Global) Sept. 17 -- The future successful manufacturers must be proficient in artificial intelligence technologies because those who are not will all fail, Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding's executive chairman, said.

The manufacturing industry will hardly survive without a transformation from standardization and scale to personalization and intelligence, Ma said at the 2018 World Artificial Intelligence Conference today. The smart tech event is held in Shanghai on Sept.17 to 19. In the next 10 to 15 years, the traditional manufacturing industry will suffer much more than it does today, he added.

To interpret AI as 'man-made intelligence' is not very accurate, since it should be machine intelligence, Ma said. Steam engines set human legs free instead of imitating human legs and in the same way, computers are not replicates of human brains, he added.

Machines will outsmart humans, Ma said, adding that men should learn to revere machine intelligence because robots have unique thoughts and logic. Computers possess intelligence, animals instincts but humans are endowed with a type of wisdom which machines cannot achieve, the billionaire tech entrepreneur said.

Alibaba Cloud has prepared for the transformation of the retail sector by opening its ET Industrial Brain Platform to help manufacturers streamline their data management. The industrial brain aims to combine production lines with AI and big data technology, while assisting manufacturers to coordinate production, data and monitoring more efficiently, Min Wanli, Alibaba Cloud artificial intelligence chief scientist told Yicai Global.

Editor: Emmi Laine