At a recent conference in Beijing, artificial intelligence experts from China presented their forecasts regarding competition with the United States. They are confident that in the coming years, China will not be able to reach the level of American technologies, despite significant progress in AI development. The main reason for this lag is the limited resources in the production of semiconductor chips and equipment necessary for creating modern AI models.
Lin Junyang, the technical director of the Qwen team at Alibaba, emphasized that the likelihood of Chinese companies being able to surpass American leaders such as Google DeepMind and OpenAI within the next 3-5 years is less than 20%. He noted that this is essentially a "very optimistic" forecast, as the computing capabilities in the U.S. significantly exceed those in China, and local companies are working at their limits to meet the growing demand.
This view is shared by Tang Jie, co-founder and chief scientist of Zhipu AI (Z.ai). He pointed out that the achievements of Chinese open AI models do not provide a complete picture of the potential of American companies, many of which keep their developments secret. "The gap between China and the U.S. may actually be widening, as there are models in the U.S. that are not yet available to the general public," he explained.
Independent studies show that Chinese AI models are gradually closing the performance gap with their American counterparts. While open access to Chinese technologies contributes to their international popularity, experts warn that this does not guarantee that China will be able to surpass the U.S. overall.
Yao Shunyu, chief AI scientist at Tencent and former lead researcher at OpenAI, expressed a more optimistic view. He believes that within 3-5 years, a Chinese company could take a leading position in the AI field, considering the country's experience in rapidly adopting technologies, such as in electric vehicle production. However, he stated that to achieve this goal, China must overcome a number of challenges: developing its own EUV equipment for advanced chip production, implementing AI in the corporate sector, and increasing funding for fundamental research.
Experts also emphasize that a new wave of researchers born in the 1990s and 2000s could help China achieve significant progress if the government continues to create conditions for innovation. As competition among large tech companies and startups becomes more open, and the requirements for AI implementation decrease, young professionals will have the opportunity to focus on scientific breakthroughs.
At the end of 2022, the U.S. allowed the export of Nvidia H200 chips to China, lifting previously imposed restrictions. However, Beijing has approached several companies with requests to suspend orders and is actively developing a strategy to replace American chips with domestic alternatives.
