China’s accelerated efforts to boost the application of fast-evolving artificial intelligence (AI) in a wide range of sectors will help the country gain a competitive edge in tech frontiers and create immense business opportunities for investors amid external uncertainties, said experts and entrepreneurs. China, they said, is at the global forefront in the development and application of AI technology, which has become a vital force bolstering its economic development and industrial upgrades, as the country recognizes AI as an essential tool in fostering new quality productive forces and building up new growth drivers. The country’s super-large market, robust engineering talent pool and thriving innovation ecosystem will underpin its capacity to drive technologies from research labs into the industrial arena, they added.
Zhu Min, former Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said China will make great strides in the use of AI technology in the next 18 months to two years, emphasizing that the country’s large-scale manufacturing, vast consumer market of 1.4 billion people and abundant industrial application scenarios present unique advantages for the development of AI. Zhu made the remarks during the 16th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as Summer Davos, in Tianjin in June. He said AI Plus will serve as an important driving force for China’s economic growth. China has surpassed the United States in the number of academic papers on AI, taking the top spot worldwide, Zhu said, adding that such papers increasingly focus on the specific industrial applications of AI. Noting that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek had opened a broad space for AI deployment, he said China’s services sector, technology and AI have huge growth potential, with future employment to take place in these emerging fields.
Goldman Sachs analysts said breakthroughs in generative AI have the potential to bring about sweeping changes to the global economy. These breakthroughs could drive a 7%, or about USD7 trillion, increase in global GDP and lift productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points over a 10-year period, they said. Under the AI Plus initiative, China will work to effectively combine digital technologies with its manufacturing and market strengths, according to this year’s Government Work Report. China will support the extensive application of large-scale AI models, and vigorously develop new-generation intelligent terminals and smart manufacturing equipment, the report said.
Li Haitao, Dean of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, said AI is profoundly reshaping the business landscape and is bound to transform various industries. Currently, China and the U.S. have the greatest potential to lead in the next round of the AI revolution, he noted. According to Li, China has a large number of well-educated engineering talent and AI professionals, improved digital infrastructure such as 5G and computing networks, massive amounts of data, and ever-increasing innovation capabilities, which provide a solid foundation for the training and adoption of AI models. The emergence of Chinese AI companies such as DeepSeek is due to the country’s long-term and accumulated achievements in multiple leading fields, such as education, the internet, 5G communication, digital payment, technological infrastructure and renewable energy, Li added.
China’s AI sector will make big strides in the next 10 to 15 years, with its market size reaching CNY1.73 trillion by 2035, accounting for 30.6% of the global total, said market research company CCID Consulting. “The recent wave of AI innovation, led by open-sourced large language models, is so encouraging that companies are quickly mobilizing themselves to harness such technologies,” said Samantha Zhu, Chairperson of Accenture Greater China. She underscored that China is emerging as “an innovation-driven economy”, with breakthroughs in areas like AI, robotics, renewable energy and electric vehicles. The consultancy estimates that adopting a holistic approach to productivity, with generative AI acting as a multiplier, could boost productivity growth from 1.9% to 15.9%. It said China has one of the most vibrant AI ecosystems in the world, driven by a mix of enterprise adoption, tech startups and public-private partnerships. To fully capitalize on the opportunities, multinational corporations should empower local teams to codevelop AI solutions with local partners, integrate AI into core operations, and leverage China as a strategic launchpad for scalable innovation, it added. Zhu emphasized that there is strong momentum for AI-driven transformation as businesses quickly integrate it into decision-making, operations and customer engagement. “Looking at the vibrant AI ecosystem, we can say that China is not just an AI market – it is a proving ground for AI adoption by enterprises at scale.”
Zhu’s views were echoed by Karel Eloot, Senior Partner of McKinsey & Co. China, Eloot said, has good technological infrastructure in terms of digitalization and AI, and has developed a world-class business-to-consumer ecosystem, laying a strong foundation for further innovation. “Chinese companies have been very open to experiment with new things so that they can learn very fast,” Eloot said, adding that Chinese firms are at the forefront of digital analytics and technology transformation. He said generative AI is very important for the future development of “lighthouse factories”, which represent the highest level of global intelligent manufacturing, the China Daily reports.
