put their cities to compete with each other

The United States dominates artificial intelligence, but China already steps on your heels and do not release the accelerator. China bets on a Focus centered on the AI Open Source and Much more efficient models From the economic point of view. But the only AI race is not with the United States, within China there is fierce competition among several cities to rise as the center of the AI.

Subsidies. China is supporting AI companies with a carrier. As reported in SCMPthe Shanghai government has launched an ambitious subsidy program of 1,000 million yuan (about 120 million euros) for the artificial intelligence industry. The package is aimed at reducing costs for startups that offer AI solutions and also facilitate their adoption by local businesses. 60% of the money will be used for computing capacity, 30% will go to discounts of third -party AI models and 10% to acquire data to train the models.

The other AI race. We always talk about the competition between the United States and China to lead the AI, but there is also a lot of rivalry within China itself. With this plan, Shanghai seeks to be more competitive in front of other cities that are also neuralgic centers for AI such as Hangzhou, Shenzhen or Beijing.

• Shanghai. It is one of the most important cities in China, but the cost of life is higher and expenses such as the rental of the offices are too high. This makes many startups choose other cheaper cities like Hangzhou. This plan seeks to attract new talent and that more companies
• Shenzhen. It is the technological city par excellence in China. In it they have their headquarters like Huawei, DJI and Tencent. In addition, there are many robotics companies and like Ubtech either Intellifusion. In Shenzhen they also have ambitious plans to compete in that internal race, such as this subsidy of 545 million euros which was announced months ago oriented to the AI industry.
• Hangzhou Shenzhen was the center of innovation, but for a while in Hangzhou they are stealing the position. Located only two hours from Shanghai, it has strengthened as the favorite destination for AI and Robotics companies. It is the home of the “six small dragons”, six startups that are leading the sector and among which are Deepseek and UNITREE. It also has its Government program To enhance AI companies and attract talent.
• Beijing. And the capital could not be missing. Here is the headquarters of some of the most important Chinese companies such as Baidu, Xiaomi, Bytedance (Tiktok), Meituan or JD.com. As for its role in the AI race, more than a Startup hub, Beijing rises as the core of the investigation. Here are The headquarters of the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and the Beijing Institute for Artificial Intelligencetwo organisms with strong government support.

Compete inside to lead out. The internal race does not divert China from its global objective, in fact, it is part of its strategy to lead outside its borders. According to Guo WandaVice President of the Chinese Development Institute: ”China needs a set of nerve centers to overcome the United States, given its enormous size and talent reserve. China thus bets on a coordinated state strategy where everyone competes with each other, but at the same time compete together against the United States.

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