China pitches for an AI race with the US and is half way through it: report

Beijing: Many say China is facing reverses in trade and economic growth, but Chinese authorities are on a mission to dominate the world—yes in AI or Alternative Intelligence.

President Xi Jinping's administration has realized the potential of AI in the forthcoming scenario, and has taken steps to invest more in the area, reports Bloomberg.

While tech giants in the US competing among themselves to become the next major AI giant, Chinese tech companies have entered ‘in the breakneck global artificial intelligence race.’

Google and Microsoft Corp. have made headway in the new technology which is predicted to control nearly everything that forms society today.

As tapping into the potential has become a race of sorts, most developed nations are just sitting in the gallery watching what is happening in the US.

But China’s ‘Billionaire entrepreneurs, mid-level engineers and veterans of foreign firms alike’ including internet mogul Wang Xiaochuan entered the race after OpenAI's ChatGPT debuted in November.

Wang Xiaochuan joined ranks of Chinese financiers, scientists and programmers to kick start projects worth some $15 billion of spending on AI technology this year, according to the report.

The move will see the participation of ‘former employees of ByteDance Ltd., e-commerce platform JD.com Inc. and Google’.

Wang, a the computer science graduate who founded the search engine Sogou that Tencent Holdings Ltd, has set up a startup Baichuan or "A Hundred Rivers," with $50 million in seed capital which is to be joined onboard by his former subordinates at Sogou.

The open-source language model, according to the report, launched by the firm is already being used by researchers at two most prominent Chinese universities.

Wang told Bloomberg News that China is still three years behind the US in AI but will not need ‘ three years to catch up’.

AI investment in the US is cushioned by $26.6 billion in the year to mid-June while China lags behind at $ 4 billion, Bloomberg reported citing a previously unreported data.

However, the investment gap is fast narrowing in terms in number of deals. China’s ventures deals in AI reached more than ‘two-thirds of the US total of about 447 in the year to mid-June.

The progress has been made even as China is facing US tech sanctions, and ‘ regulators’ data and censorship demands.

It seems China is on the path to take on the US techs as it had done with its example of Tik TiK and other tech triumphs.