China's AI strategy relies on frenzy and frenemies
Held on the banks of the Huangpu river in Shanghai, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference convened thousands of people — as well as scores of robots — and brought to life all the passions and pitfalls of the current state of AI in China. It also put into stark contrast the chasm between the strategy pushed by Beijing and the one touted by the White House.
It's the first major gathering since DeepSeek's breakthrough reasoning model launched earlier this year, driving intense competition at home and proving China can go toe-to-toe with Silicon Valley. With that exuberance came the crowds of challengers, present in so many domestic industries, encouraged by government support and an open-source ecosystem that allows firms to quickly learn from rivals. When one of the so-called Little Dragons, Moonshot, released a massive open-source model that excelled at coding tasks, Alibaba Group was able to update their own Qwen model within about a week to improve benchmarks at the same skills that sent Kimi-K2 viral.
Beijing likes to say this approach democratizes access to AI by offering the world the ability to freely build atop its tools, and it gives local developers an edge.
China's current AI frenzy represents the best and worst of classic capitalism: The competition propels innovation at a rapid clip, but not all of the companies will survive over the next five or 10 years. During the summit, state-backed media touted how the country has now released 1,500 large AI models — the biggest share globally — and is home to more than 5,000 AI companies.
Yet the domestic rivalries on display were overshadowed by a broader, geopolitical contest for supremacy. China's big gathering kicked off just days after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged that that America will "do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence.' After unveiling a so-called AI Action Plan, he went on to declare that America is the country that started the AI race and "is going to win it.'
In Shanghai, Premier Li Qiang headlined opening night by announcing that China will organize the launch of an international body to jointly develop the technology, with the goal of preventing it from becoming "an exclusive game for a small number of countries and enterprises.' It dovetailed with this year's conference theme: "Global solidarity in the AI era.' China is willing to share its development and products with the world, Li said, especially in the Global South.
Still, what these world leaders say is one thing, what they do is another. Trump's declaration of doing whatever it takes to win follows his decision to hand a major gift to Chinese AI firms. Washington reversed course on semiconductor restrictions, allowing Nvidia's highly sought-after H20 chips to resume sales on the mainland. The policy U-turn was announced in the midst of, and likely influenced by, ongoing trade talks. It also came after Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang lobbied for his company to be able to keep its multibillion-dollar slice of the lucrative China market.
And as much as Li pitches "solidarity,' it's unclear how many countries will ultimately choose to align with China. Yet it's a far cry from Washington's "America First' AI policy goals and signals that Beijing's that approach relies on convincing the world to use its plethora of low-cost AI products being rapidly released. Fresh access to Nvidia processers is giving the industry new momentum and the increasingly crowded field is driving down prices. Compare the two and China's plan seems more strategic in the long run.
One of the forums on Sunday featured a Zoom appearance from pioneering AI godfather Yoshua Bengio, who warned that the U.S.-China competition was dangerous and that development was progressing so rapidly it may become impossible for humans to control.
Bengio has a point. But is anybody listening? Ambitions of AI acceleration from both sides of the Pacific suggest not.
Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech.
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