By Laurie Chen and Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – China declared on Thursday that it was now the world leader in research and development for artificial intelligence as well as other key fields such as quantum technology, and vowed to accelerate efforts to achieve greater tech self-reliance.
That claim was made in one of the government reports issued at the opening session of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament.
“China now leads the world in research and development and application in fields such as AI, biomedicine, robotics and quantum technology, and new breakthroughs were made in the independent R&D of chips,” according to a report by the National Development and Reform Commission.
The government highlighted its commitment to technology – an area it calls “new quality productive forces” – in the opening paragraphs of the main government work report presented by Premier Li Qiang. That was far more prominent than last year’s report.
New quality productive forces are set to account for a majority of projects in the yet-to-be-released five year plan for 2026-2030, the report said.
China is locked in a fierce battle with the United States for supremacy in key technologies. That has led to intense trade friction with both sides placing export controls on some key products and resources – advanced chips most notably in the case of Washington and rare earths and critical minerals in the case of Beijing.
Weaning itself off reliance on Western tech such as chips and planes has been a major theme for Beijing, as has getting ahead in newer industries such as AI.
HUMANOID ROBOTS AND DATA CENTRES
The main government work report outlined how the country plans to increase investment in some areas at the cutting-edge of science, like machine-brain interfaces. China is also doubling down on industries it leads, such as quantum technology, embodied AI – the tech that powers humanoid robots – and 6G.
“Beijing is making AI and especially embodied AI a major area of focus,” said Kyle Chan, fellow in Chinese technology at the Brookings Institution think tank.
“Beijing’s goal is to use AI and robotics to boost productivity and performance in a wide range of sectors, from manufacturing and logistics to education and healthcare.”
Across the broader AI industry, an area where China is seeking to challenge the lead of U.S. tech giants and startups, Beijing promised to build out “hyper-scale” computing clusters supported by cheap and abundant electricity and also support the building of AI open-source communities.
“Open source wasn’t mentioned in previous reports, and this is also a key difference between the Chinese and American AI approaches,” said Tilly Zhang, technology and industrial policy analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics.
“I believe China has studied this very carefully and decided to make open-source AI a flagship strategy and a competitive advantage against the United States.”
State-owned enterprises, which dominate the list of the largest companies, were also urged to take steps to create demand for made-in-China technology like chips, biomedicine and drones.
“This year, there’s much more focus on how to make money from technology. This is a very interesting shift. What they’re really talking about is tech commercialization—the idea that investments in technology can truly become economic drivers. This is a very significant and practical change,” Zhang said.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Eduardo Baptista; Additional reporting by Liam Mo, Che Pan and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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