Priya patel
TLDR:
- Chinese tech firms rely heavily on U.S. technology for advancements in A.I.
- China lags behind the United States in generative A.I. by at least a year.
China’s rush to dominate artificial intelligence (A.I.) is dependent on technology from the United States, as revealed in a recent article by The New York Times. The article discusses how Chinese companies, despite high valuations and deep-pocketed backers, are falling behind in generative A.I. developments compared to the U.S. This reliance on U.S. technology has implications for the ongoing technological competition between the two nations.
In November, a Chinese start-up called 01.AI, founded by Kai-Fu Lee, gained attention for its A.I. system that was built on technology from Meta’s generative A.I. model. This highlights the common practice of Chinese firms using underlying systems from the U.S. to stay competitive. The article mentions that China is at least a year behind the U.S. in generative A.I. and may be further lagging, setting the stage for intensified technological competition akin to a cold war.
Experts in the field, such as Chris Nicholson and Jenny Xiao, acknowledge that Chinese companies often rely on “fine-tuned versions of Western models” due to the inferior quality of A.I. models built from scratch in China. This leads to a two to three-year estimated gap between China and the U.S. in generative A.I. developments.
