Chinese firms treading a fine line in Al race

Beijing wants to lead the world in developing cutting- edge artificial intelligence, but it also wants companies to adhere to an increasingly complex set of rules, write Meaghan Tobin and Xinyun Wu from Taipei

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Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia. Despite the US easing limits on some Nvidia AI chips, China's industry is focused on gaining access to the semiconductors that power advanced systems.

(PHOTOS BY NYT)

n late January, China's leader, Xi Jinping, told a gathering of officials from across the country that China was on the cusp of an "epoch-making major technological revolution.

Artificial intelligence, he said, is as transformative as the steam engine, electricity and the internet. But for all of its promise, China must not let the new technology "spiral out of control," Mr Xi warned during a study session for leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, according to state media. China must act early and decisively, anticipating and preventing problems with prudence and caution, he said.

Mr Xi's remarks highlight a tension shaping China's tech industry. China's leadership has decided that Al will drive the country's economic growth in the next decade. At the same time, it cannot allow the new technology to disrupt the stability of Chinese society and the Communist Party's hold over it.

The result is that the government is pushing Chinese AI companies to do two things at once: move fast so China can outpace international rivals and be at the forefront of the technological shift, while complying with an increasingly complex set of rules.

When Zhipu Al, one of China's most promising AI startups, filed for a public listing in Hong Kong last month that valued the company at over $6 billion, it warned investors about the substantial burden of complying with half a dozen or more Al-related regulations. Similar to OpenAI, Zhipu develops AI models and applications that use them, such as the ChatGLM chatbot.