Overview
China will be the world leader in AI innovation by 2030, according to Bejing’s New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan (NGAIDP). This sweeping national initiative describes how China will leverage its national resources, industrial capacity, and huge pool of STEM specialists to overtake the United States as the global AI leader.
Skeptics may point out how Chinese government documents can be prone to hyperbole, but our researchers at the NSDPI found China’s socio-political culture is setting this AI ambition up to succeed. This white paper explores Chinese national sentiments around AI and machine learning as well as government policies and industrial development. We show why, in the words of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, “China is not behind anybody” in AI development.
Key Takeaways
- In contrast to the ambiguity typical of China domestic national initiatives, the NGAIDP offers extensive detail into local implementation of its national AI plan. Setting a clearly defined roadmap for AI efforts across China, the NGAIDP focuses on equitable distribution of AI resources, funding, and support. This indicates China is serious about cultivating AI leadership across the country even as it provides special investment in cities where AI companies are already thriving.
- China’s government and citizens view the disruptive nature of AI more positively than many nations. In a 2017 GO match, over 200 million Chinese fans watched Google’s DeepMind AI platform defeat the top-ranked GO player in the world, Chinese grandmaster Ke Jie. The defeated Ke later generated national excitement when he successfully learned from and emulated DeepMind’s strategy to win 22 consecutive matches against GO grandmasters and take 1st place in the 2017 All China Athletic Games. Chinese reporting on this revealed a nation excited about AI’s potential to positively augment humanity.
- PRC support and funding has already led to successful AI infrastructure that has helped Chinese companies emerge as global AI leaders. This January, Chinese company DeepSeek announced its efficient, cost-effective, and open-source AI model, proving Chinese generative AI could compete with US AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic while significantly improving compute cost. In addition, the 2024 Digital China Development Report saw 61.5% of the 45,000 AI-related patents published in 2023 came from China.