Vivian Wang

And he basically says, I want China to be on top of that.

I want China to be the number one maker of intelligent robots.

And I also want us to dominate all sorts of other technologies that are going to be the future.

And this turns into a plan in 2017 that is called China's New Generation AI Development Plan, which is their first national-level roadmap of what they are going to do with AI.

And it sets out a goal that says they want China to be a leading AI power by 2030.

And it also says that the way it's going to get there is through real-world applications.

Yeah, exactly.

It kind of sets the gears of government going at all levels.

So after this national plan comes out, then you have the provincial and local governments sort of falling over themselves to show how they are complying.

Yong Zhao is attempting to recreate a Silicon Valley-style work environment in Beijing's Zhuangguan Sun district.

So they start building industrial parks to attract top companies.

They start giving tax breaks and sort of free or cheap rent to these companies.

And they start giving them money to attract the top talent.

It's really this all-in national effort to deliver.

So for a few years, China really feels like it has the lead in AI.

Especially at the time, they were really focused on developing technologies like facial recognition and voice recognition.

And Chinese companies really were at the forefront of this.

They were some of the best in the world.

And this was, of course, also really useful for China's surveillance apparatus.

But then in 2022, ChatGPT comes on the scene.