China is cutting distances with the US in AI with the best that is given: observe

Although artificial intelligence applications that are most used in the world usually come from US companies, China is silently climbing positions through a strategy with many legs. A strategy that not only focuses on computing, but also on building solid foundations around this industry.

As WSJ points outfrom multinational banks to public universities, organizations around the world are adopting AI models developed by companies such as Deepseek or alibaba as an alternative to American solutions. There is still a great job ahead, but the popularity of its language models begins to shoot worldwide.

A silent revolution. While Chatgpt is still the most popular chatbot in the world with 910 million downloads Faced with the 125 million DEPEEEK, according to the Tower Sensor Analysis firm, real competition is not measured only in end users. Banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered They have begun to prove internally the Depseek modelsthe Saudi Aramco oil company has installed this technology in its main data center, and even American giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google offer Deepseek to their customers.

The Chinese strategy is clear: to offer a performance up at considerably lower prices. The dynamic is being similar to the one that the country has been applying in the rest of industries: observe around it, then innovate and then dominate with competitive prices.

China’s secret weapon: 3.5 million engineers per year. For decades, China has meticulously built Its arsenal of human capital in Stem disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The country annually graduates 3.57 million engineers, four times more than the United States.

This advantage is not accidental: since the 80s, China shipment massively students to Western universities in the phenomenon known as “Hai Gui” (sea turtles), which returned to transform Chinese academic institutions. Universities like Tsinghua They have come to overcome Stanford or Mit in number of relevant scientific studies. The master plan began with the “four modernizations“De Deng Xiaoping, who prioritized technical and scientific education with a long -term vision. Today, education spending has not come down from 4% of GDP In two decades, and incentives to publish quality research can reach $ 100,000 per study. The result: 38% of AI experts who work in the United States were formed in Chinese universities.

How China is gaining ground. The Chinese strategy combines three key elements:

• First: An approach to practical applications of AI against the American search for superintelligence. While Openai and other American companies pursue revolutionary advances, Chinese companies focus on solving immediate market problems.
• Second: The release of open source models that allow developers around the world to adapt them freely. Alibaba has seen how more than 100,000 derived models are created based on its Qwenand in other institutions, such as the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, They have chosen Deepseek for your projects due to your Open-Source nature and to be able to use it without connection to guarantee the safety of your data.
• Third: aggressive prices that are irresistible for emerging markets. On platforms such as Latenode, which helps companies around the world to create personalized AI tools, one in five global companies already choose Deepseek Being “17 times cheaper” than US alternatives, according to Oleg Zankov, co -founder of Latenode. This strategy is especially effective in countries where money and computing power are more limited.

A COLD TECHNOLOGICAL WAR. This competition is fracturing the global ecosystem of AI in two blocks. USA has tightened chips exports restrictionswhile China massively invests in building an independent supply chain. The result is a division in which countries and companies must choose between American or Chinese systems. And while Washington tries to limit Chinese access to technology, American companies themselves integrate Chinese solutions in their services.

Innovation, talent and prices. The competition will intensify on multiple fronts. China is revolutionizing its search engines: Baidu has just launched The greatest update of its platform In a decade, allowing searches for more than a thousand characters compared to the previous 28, complete integration with AI and multimodal capabilities that include voice, images and files. It is a direct response to the Deepseek pressure at the national level and other conversational platforms.

Meanwhile, Chinese talent is still courted by American technological ones: goal has recently signed To four key Chinese engineers of OpenAI, who have contributed greatly in models such as GPT-4 and O3. Paradoxically, while Trump threatens to revoke visas to Chinese students For national security, the American industry depends more and more on this talent. What is clear is that the country that achieves the broader adoption of its technology in the rest of the world will have a huge advantage.

Cover image | Solen Feyissa and Arthur Wang

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