The field of artificial intelligence has become the scene of a frantic corporate arms race, with internet giants snapping up AI startups and talent.

Google recently paid a reported $500 million for the UK deep learning company DeepMind and has lured AI legends Ray Kurzweil and Geoffrey Hinton to its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Facebook has its own deep learning group, led by prize hire Yann LeCun from New York University. […]