China’s chief administrative authority is pushing for the country to become a world leader in artificial intelligence technology in less than 15 years.

The State Council of the People’s Republic of China laid out its plans in a “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” published late last week that envisions an AI industry worth $148 billion a year by 2030. In order to reach that goal, the State Council has laid out a three-step plan.

Step one is to ensure China’s AI industry maintains an advanced position in terms of technology and applications and becomes an important growth engine for the economy, worth $22.15 billion by 2020. Step two will see China’s AI industry make “major breakthroughs” and develop world-leading technologies and applications by 2025 while driving revenues of $59.07 billion.

Finally, step three is intended to see China become the world’s undisputed leader in AI theory, technology and applications by 2030, as well as a global center of innovation. By that time, China also hopes, the industry will achieve its $148 billion-a-year revenue target.

China’s State Council said it will support the creation of new companies and brands in areas such as drones, image recognition and natural language processing. Other target areas include driverless cars, intelligence robots and wearable devices.

China said it will encourage the private sector to support AI growth as much as possible, while also providing funds of its own to finance AI companies with the capital they need. In addition, it will encourage industry associations to create their own AI investment funds, while providing tax breaks and other financial incentives for AI startups.

The plan also calls for Chinese companies to invest in or acquire foreign AI firms and to establish overseas research centers. And the government will actively encourage foreign AI firms to establish research centers in its own territory.

China’s State Council also acknowledged that the evolution of AI will likely result in millions of job losses in certain industries. It said it plans to deal with this by ordering government agencies to conduct studies into future labor demand and also help retrain workers for new jobs.

Finally, the plan also calls for new laws to be established that deal with the legal and ethical challenges that could arise from AI’s evolution. The need for law changes was made all too clear last month when China’s police said it would “investigate” tech powerhouse Baidu Inc. for illegally testing its latest self-driving car prototype on the streets of Beijing.

China’s initiative comes after a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report published last month predicted that the world’s gross domestic product will rise by 14 percent by 2030 because of the widespread deployment of AI. The report added that China will make the most economic gains from AI, boosting its GDP by up to 26 percent by 2030.

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