From chatbots to intelligent toys: How AI is booming in China

The head in the hands, eight -year -old Timmy muted herself as he tried to defeat a robot operated by artificial intelligence in a chess game.

But it was not an AI showroom or laboratory – this robot on a coffee table in a Beijing apartment, along with Timmy.

The first night came this house, Timmy hugged his little robot friend before going to bed. He has no name for this – yet.

“It’s like a small teacher or a younger friend,” said, as he showed his mother the next trick, he was considering the chess board.

After a moment, the robot said: “Congratulations! You won.” Gol -eyes naping on the screen, it began to regain the pieces to start a new game as it continued in Mandarin: “I have seen your ability, I will do better next time.”

China is embracing AI in its dialect to become a technical superpower by 2030.

Deepsek, Success Chinese Chatbot In January, the world’s attention attracted attention, the first sign of that ambition.

To promote domestic competition, money is being invested in AI businesses in search of more capital. There are over 4,500 firms developing and selling AI, schools in Capital Beijing are offering AI courses for primary and secondary students later this year, and universities have increased the number of places available for students studying AI.

“This is an unavoidable tendency. We will be co-existence with AI,” said Timmy’s Mam, Yan Zu. “Children should know it as soon as possible. We should not reject it.”

He is eager to learn both chess and strategy board games for his son – both robots who persuade him that his $ 800 -value tag was a good investment. Its creators are already planning to add a language tuition program.

Perhaps this was the same as the Chinese Communist Party hoped that in 2017 it was declared that AI would be the “main driving force” of the country’s progress. President Xi Jinping is now betting on him, as a Chinese economy is struggling with its biggest trading partner, tariff from the United States.

Beijing plans to invest the 10tn Chinese yuan ($ 1.4tn; £ 1tn) over the next 15 years as it competes with Washington to gain an edge in advanced technology. AI funding received another boost in the government’s annual political meeting, which is currently running. It falls on the heels of 60 billion yuan-AI investment funds created in January, a few days later the US tightened export control to advanced chips and placed more Chinese firms on a business blacklist.

But Deepsek has shown that Chinese companies can remove these obstacles. And this Silicon Valley and industry experts have been shocked – they did not expect China to catch so soon.

This is a reaction that Tommy Tang has become accustomed to six months after marketing its firm’s chess-playing robot in various competitions.

Timmy’s machine comes from the same company, sensorobot, providing a wide range of capabilities – Chinese state media welcomed an advanced version in 2022, which defeated the chess Grand Masters in the game.

“Parents ask about the price, they will ask where I am from. They hope that I hope to come from America or Europe. They are surprised that I am from China,” Mr. Tang said smiling. “When I say I am from China, there will always be a silence of one or two seconds.”

His firm has sold over 100,000 robots and is now a contract with a major American supermarket series, CostCo.

One of the secrets of China’s engineering success is its young people. In 2020, more than 3.5 million students in the country graduated with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as Stem.

It is more than any other country in the world – and Beijing is eager to take advantage of it. “Building power in education, science and talent is a common responsibility,” Xi told the party leaders last week.

Ever since China opened its economy to the world in the late 1970s, it has been “through a process of accumulating talent and technology,” says Abbott Liu, vice -president of Shanghai -based whalesbot, which makes AI toy. “In this era of AI, we have found many, many engineers, and they are hardworking.”

Behind him, a dinosaur roars for life, made of various colored bricks. It is being controlled through the code collected on smartphones at the age of seven.

The company is developing toys to help children as three learn codes. Every package of bricks comes with a booklet of code. Children can then choose what they want to make and learn how to do it. The cheapest toy sells for approximately $ 40.

“There are also AI education robots in other countries, but when it comes to competition and smart hardware, China is doing better,” says Mr. Liu.

He said that the success of Deepsek converted his CEO Liang Wenfeng into a national hero and said “the value of the 10 billion yuan advertisement for China’s AI industry”, he said.

“It has told the public that AI is not just a concept, that it can actually change people’s lives. It has inspired public curiosity.”

Six homegron AI firms, including Deepsek, are now named Chinese six Little Dragons by the Internet – other units robotics, deep robotics, brainco, game science and many core.

Some of them were at the AI ​​fair recently in Shanghai, where the biggest Chinese firms in the business showed their progress, from search and rescue robots to a backflipping dog-like one, which wandered into the hall among visitors.

In a bustling exhibition hall, two teams of Humanoid Robot completed it in a game of football, in red and blue jersey. The machines collapsed when they collided – and one of them was taken out of the ground in a stretcher by his human handler, which was eager to maintain the joke.

It was difficult to remember the air of enthusiasm among the developers in view of the Deepsek. 26 -year -old engineer U Jingji said, “Deepsek means that the world knows that we are here.”

But as the world knows about China’s AI ability, there are also concerns about whether AI is allowing the Chinese government to know about its users.

AI is hungry for data – the more it becomes, the clever it makes it and the US has a real advantage of Beijing, with a billion mobile phone users compared to just 400 million.

The West, its colleagues and many experts from these countries believe that the data collected by the Chinese apps such as Deepsek, Rednot or Ticketok can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party. Some indicate the country’s national intelligence law as evidence.

But Chinese firms, including bidence, who owns Tikkok, say that the law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data. Nevertheless, it is suspected that American user data on Tiktok may end in the hands of the Chinese government Decision to ban Washington’s highly popular app,

The same fear – where privacy concerns meet national security challenges – is killing Deepsek. South Korea banned New downloads of lampsacWhile Taiwan and Australia have App stopped the app from the government issued equipment,

Chinese companies are aware of these sensitivity and Mr. Tang was in a hurry to tell the BBC that “privacy was a red line” for their company. Beijing also realizes that it will be a challenge in his dialect to be a global leader in AI.

“The rapid growth of the lampsac has triggered hostile reactions from some in the West,” a comment in the state -run Beijing said, “The development environment for China’s AI model is highly uncertain”.

But China’s AI firms have not been stopped. Instead, they believe that Thrifty Innovation would win them an undeniable profit – as it claimed that this AI could rival Chatgate for a fraction of the cost that shocks the industry.

So engineering challenge is how to make more for less. “This was our mission impossible,” said Mr. Tang. His company found that the robot used to move chess pieces was extremely expensive to produce arm and would run the price up to $ 40,000.

Therefore, he tried to use AI to help engineers perform work and increase the manufacturing process. Mr. Tang claims that the cost has reduced to $ 1,000.

“This is innovation,” they say. “Artificial engineering is now integrated into the manufacturing process.”

This can be very implicated because China applies AI on a large scale. The state media already shows factories filled with humanoid robots. In January, the government said that it would promote the development of AI-operated Humanoid robots to help to see after its rapid aging population.

Xi has repeatedly declared “technical self-reliance” an important goal, which means that China wants to create its own advanced chips, to create US export sanctions that can obstruct its plans.

The Chinese leader knows that he is for a long race-Beizing Daily recently warned that there was no time for the moment “AI Vijayavad” of Deepsek as China was still in “catch-up mode”.

President Xi is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, robots and advanced technology in the preparation of a marathon that he hopes that China will eventually win.