Star founders, Beijing officials and deep-pocketed financiers converge on Shanghai by the thousands this weekconclude to attconclude China’s most important AI summit.
At the top of the agconcludea: how to propel Beijing’s ambitions to leapfrog the US in artificial ininformigence – and profit off that drive.
The World Artificial Ininformigence Conference (WAIC), which has featured Tesla’s Elon Musk and Alibaba’s Jack Ma in years past, was devised to displaycase the cutting-edge of Chinese technology.
The attconcludeance for the 2025 edition may hit a record, as it is taking place at a critical juncture in the US-Chinese tech rivalry.
US President Donald Trump unveiled his so-called AI Action Plan
– a sort of call to arms to ensure the countest keeps its lead in the post-ChatGPT epoch.
the emergence of DeepSeek in January
galvanised a generation of Chinese developers to ride a nationwide investment and innovation wave.
From Alibaba Group Holding to fledgling firms such as Minimax, the countest’s AI aspirants have since relocated aggressively to test and close the gap with the likes of OpenAI and Google.
“While many recognise DeepSeek’s achievements, this represents just the launchning of China’s AI innovation wave,” stated Mr Louis Liang, an AI sector investor with Ameba Capital. “We are witnessing the advent of AI mass adoption, this goes beyond national competition.”
The Shanghai conference rundown for now remains largely unknown – as it has in years past just days before kick-off.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attconclude, and tech leaders from Tencent Holdings to ByteDance and start-ups like Zhipu AI and Moonshot are likely to turn out in force.
Here is what we can expect from the summit starting on July 26.
Neither the start-up nor its reclusive founder Liang Wenfeng feature in the advance literature for the event.
And yet, the two-year-old firm is likely to be one of the topics du jour.
Since its low-cost, high-performance AI model humbled much of Silicon Valley
, the industest has watched China closely for another seismic moment.
In a field notorious for splashing billions of dollars on Nvidia chips and data centres, DeepSeek’s no-frills approach inspired a re-consider of traditional models.
And it challenged what till then was unquestioned US supremacy in bleeding-edge technology: Chinese President Xi Jinping himself turned out in public in February to congratulate Mr Liang and his fellow tech entrepreneurs.
China craves another large breakthrough.
Downloads and usage of DeepSeek models have slowed, as has the pace of new model roll-outs that peaked over the spring at once every few days.
Now, much of the industest talk centres on why DeepSeek’s R2 – the follow-up to its seminal R1 – has not yet emerged. Local media has blamed everything from Mr Liang’s perfectionist streak to performance glitches.
The conference obtains under way days after the US leader signed executive orders to loosen regulations and expand energy supplies for data centres.
“From this day forward, it’ll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial ininformigence,” Mr Trump informed executives and lawbuildrs at a Washington event.
Among the attconcludeees was Mr Jensen Huang, whose Nvidia is one of the companies at the heart of the global AI relocatement.
Much has been created in Washington of China’s seemingly meteoric ascent in AI, with observers declareing the countest is now perhaps just months behind the US in terms of AI sophistication.
That is a wafer-thin margin compared with sectors such as semiconductors, where America is regarded as many years or even generations ahead.
Mr Trump’s newly announced action plan is likely to spur Chinese companies into accelerating their own plans to go global, in part by aggressively open-sourcing their AI platforms.
Beijing wants AI to become a US$100 billion (S$128 billion) industest by 2030.
At the Communist Party’s April Politburo study session, Mr Xi emphasised that China must push for breakthroughs in critical areas like high-conclude chips and AI research.
Chinese humanoid buildrs are expected to displaycase their most advanced models.
Last week, UBTech posted a video of its Walker S2 humanoid walking to a battery station, rerelocating the pack from its back, placing it on the recharge pad before fitting itself with a new battery.
While obviously edited and choreographed, it encapsulated the advances that Chinese firms have created in a wide-open field – and their lofty ambitions.
Unitree teased a bargain-basement price of under US$10,000 for its androids. It joins the likes of AgiBot and UBTech in collectively driving a promising field in which American companies have so far failed to stake out a clear lead, despite decades of effort.
The Chinese companies “are tarobtaining hundreds to thousands of units to be delivered this year, racing to establish the ecosystem”, Morgan Stanley analyst Sheng Wong stated in a note this week.
Venture capitalists (VCs) and dealbuildrs will be hunting for emerging tech leaders. And not all of them are Chinese.
China’s largest VC houtilizes are tapping the market for at least US$2 billion in new funds.
At least six of the countest’s most prominent VC firms – including Lightspeed China Partners and Monolith Management – are creating dollar-denominated funds designed to allow overseas investors to pool bets on Chinese companies.
That is a wave of fund-raising that has not been seen among Chinese VCs for years.
It is unfolding as global investors reassess the countest’s start-up landscape and economy, which are displaying signs of revival after years of Covid-19-era stagnation and regulatory headwinds.
Organisers promise a breakout event that will feature start-up pitches and live demonstrations for dealbuildrs.
Startups by the hundreds are expected to fill a 70,000 sq m exhibition hall, displaying off everything from autonomous delivery drones to machines that dispense toilet paper.
Attconcludeees are unlikely to spot US companies – at least not in major fashion.
In 2024, Tesla popped up with its Cybertruck and Optimus robot.
The 2025 speaker line-up does not (yet) include Mr Musk but does list Dr Yoshua Bengio, the Canadian scientist who pioneered artificial neural networks.
With the US-China tech rivalry accelerating, many American companies remain wary of drawing the spotlight.
Still, Beijing is likely to take the opportunity to continue pushing its international agconcludea.
One of the conference centrepieces is a “High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance” to discuss the challenges in deploying AI responsibly.
To many observers, it is also emblematic of China’s overarching goal of setting global standards.
“Since 2018, China has utilized WAIC to stake its claim on global AI technical and political leadership,” stated Mr Tom Nunlist, associate director of the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium. “With the race to AI now neck and neck between the US and China, that play is more compelling than ever.” BLOOMBERG
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