China's AI push finds footprint worldwide

In a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, a dozen young programmers gather around secondhand laptops to develop an application. The artificial intelligence model they are using is trained to identify crop disease from a single smartphone photo.

Interestingly, the small business and similar entities around Africa are increasingly turning to China for their AI models. Chinese firms such as Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies have been promoting open-source AI models across the continent, focusing on startups and innovation hubs. Freely available and modifiable, these models allow developers to build products without paying high licensing fees.

The approach is in sharp contrast to that of companies in the United States, including OpenAI, whose AI ecosystems are largely proprietary, with the software, training data and algorithms tightly controlled by parent firms and monetized through paid access.

While global attention has been focused on Western technology companies competing for lucrative contracts in the US and the Middle East, the scene in Nairobi highlights the very different strategy adopted by Chinese tech firms.

In many African countries, computing power remains costly and scarce. Cheaper and more energy-efficient AI can go a long way in allowing the world's most coveted technology to reach millions of new users, enabling local startups to design products tailored to African realities, industry experts said.

Wei Kai, head of the artificial intelligence research institute at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said the shift reflects the deep rollout of China's "AI Plus" initiative.

"China's AI companies going global have moved beyond just exporting products or services. Instead, they are enabling the intelligent upgrade of local industrial chains through technology empowerment," Wei said.

He noted that the growing global reach of Chinese AI technologies is not only about broadening application scenarios, but also about addressing concrete challenges in production and daily life.

"Chinese companies are exporting models, platforms and increasingly entire industrial solutions, helping other countries learn how AI is built, deployed and governed worldwide," he added.

In Africa, the value of the digital economy is estimated to be about $180 billion — a fraction of Open-AI's roughly $500 billion valuation based on recent equity deals.

In this emerging market, Huawei and ZTE have supplied much of the data center, 5G and fiber-optic network equipment. Further down the technology stack, Transsion Holdings accounts for much of Africa's smartphone market, with Xiaomi and Honor gaining ground, while TikTok is among the continent's most downloaded apps.

China's "AI Plus" initiative sits at the center of this expansion. The State Council, China's Cabinet, has issued guidelines calling for deeper integration of AI across science and technology, industry, consumption, public services, governance and international cooperation.

Robust growth

The World Intellectual Property Organization reported that between 2014 and 2023, China filed more than 38,000 generative AI patents — six times the number filed by the US.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China's AI sector now boasts more than 5,300 enterprises, accounting for about 15 percent of the global total.

The industry was worth 900 billion yuan ($126.7 billion) in 2024, up 24 percent year-on-year. Revenues from foundational infrastructure, model architecture and industry applications rose 54 percent, 18 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

In the Middle East, Chinese companies are integrating AI with the internet of things in national projects such as Saudi Arabia's NEOM city and the United Arab Emirates' Smart Dubai initiative, helping build efficient resource management and urban security systems in desert environments.

In Southeast Asia, predictive maintenance solutions provided by Chinese AI firms are being deployed in electronics and auto-parts factories in Vietnam and Thailand.

"These practices create commercial value, but more importantly, they improve quality of life, enhance social resilience and push inclusive technology adoption on a global scale," Wei said.

China's AI prowess has grown despite US restrictions on AI chips and algorithms. Washington has expanded export controls, adding dozens of Chinese AI entities, including the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, to the list of restricted entities.

Efficient approach

Although the measures to some extent have constrained China's access to advanced chips, industry experts said that they have also greatly accelerated domestic innovation and encouraged efficiency-driven approaches such as model compression and edge computing.

Zheng Yongnian, dean of the School of Public Policy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), termed as "unwise" the imposition of restrictive measures on Chinese companies to hinder the country's AI progress.

"China possesses significant advantages in application scenarios, with the government actively promoting the "AI Plus" initiative to expedite technological implementation. US sanctions on technologies have, paradoxically, spurred China to intensify investments in these areas and foster indigenous innovation," Zheng said.

"If China's AI technologies continue to evolve at the current pace, the US may find itself relying on China's original innovations in certain sectors within 10 to 15 years," he added.

Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned AI expert and chairman of investment company Sinovation Ventures, said that China has already reached its "Deep-Seek Moment", and its success has awakened the Chinese market and ushered in a new AI era.

"DeepSeek's rise proves that closed-source AI has no future, and only open-source development will drive greater progress," said Lee, who also called for global cooperation in AI.

According to a joint report by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and open-source AI startup Hugging Face, Chinese-developed open-source large language models accounted for 17.1 percent of global downloads over the past year, surpassing the US for the first time.

Beijing's engagement in global AI governance is also expanding. China has promoted principles of people-centered development, inclusive access and collaborative governance in international forums.

At the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, a China-proposed resolution on strengthening cooperation in AI capacity building was adopted by consensus, a move Beijing said reflected broader recognition of its approach to bridging the digital divide.

Zeng Yi, a member of the United Nations' high-level advisory body on AI and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Automation, said: "The future of AI is not decided by a handful of countries, but by nearly 200 countries and regions. The world is big enough to embrace both the US and China to codevelop AI."

chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn