Alibaba's Head: China's Chances of Surpassing the U.S. in AI Are Less Than 20%
At a recent conference in Beijing, AI experts from China stated that the country is unlikely to surpass the United States in this field in the coming years. The main reason for this opinion is the lack of resources, particularly in semiconductor and chip manufacturing, which are crucial components for modern AI models.
Lin Junyang, the technical director of the Qwen team at Alibaba, emphasized that the chances of Chinese companies overtaking giants like Google DeepMind and OpenAI in the next 3-5 years do not exceed 20%. He characterized this estimate as "extremely optimistic," adding that the computational power in the U.S. significantly surpasses that of China, forcing local companies to operate at the limits of their capabilities.
Tang Jie, co-founder and chief scientist at Zhipu AI (Z.ai), supported Lin's view, pointing out that the success of Chinese AI models does not reflect the full potential of American developments, as many of them remain closed. "The gap between China and the U.S. may widen, as there are models in the States that have not yet been presented to the public," he noted.
Some independent tests show that the performance of Chinese models is gradually approaching that of their American counterparts. Open access to Chinese developments facilitates their international dissemination; however, experts warn that this does not guarantee surpassing the U.S. as a whole.
From a more optimistic perspective, Yao Shunyu, chief scientist at Tencent in the field of AI and former lead researcher at OpenAI, expressed that within 3-5 years, a Chinese company could take a leading position in the AI sector, considering the speed at which the country is developing technologies, such as in electric vehicle production. Nevertheless, for this to happen, China needs to overcome several barriers: develop its own EUV equipment for advanced chip manufacturing, implement AI in business, and increase investments in fundamental research.
Experts also noted that a new wave of researchers born in the 1990s and 2000s could play a key role in achieving breakthroughs if the government supports innovation. As transparency increases in the competition between tech giants and startups, and the burden of AI implementation decreases, young specialists will be able to focus on scientific achievements.
At the end of last year, Washington allowed the export of Nvidia H200 chips to China, lifting previous bans. However, Beijing has approached several companies requesting to temporarily suspend orders and is actively promoting a strategy to replace American chips with local alternatives.
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