Giving a large majority of a population exposure to a field from a young age means that there will be a large number who find out they enjoy it, who might other

Giving a large majority of a population exposure to a field from a young age means that there will be a large number who find out they enjoy it, who might otherwise choose another field in college. There are more than 9 million Chinese who take Gaokao university entrance examination each year. Even if 1% choose to major in AI or a closely related field, that is 90,000 per annum. Among this mass, there will be some future inventors of breakthrough algorithms who could have chosen to major in physics or math without the policy. Moreover, most of future AI workforce will focus on applying it to various domains rather than inventing whole new algorithms or frameworks. For that purpose, having more people is a clear advantage.