China to harness nation’s resources to AI self-reliance ambitions

China will mobilise the country’s resources to spur advances in the theory and core technologies of artificial intelligence, President Xi Jinping has told the Communist Party’s inner circle.

Addressing a Politburo study session on Friday, Xi said China would leverage its “new whole national system” to target bottlenecks such as high-end chips, state media reported on Saturday.

China is seeking to overtake the United States in AI to become a world leader in a field seen as critical to moving the country up the industrial value chain.

Despite some progress, much work still needed to be done in China to “achieve self-reliance” in the field, Xi added.

“We must acknowledge the technological gap, redouble our efforts to comprehensively push forward technological innovation, industrial development and applications, and the AI regulatory system,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

“[China should] continue to strengthen basic research, and concentrate on conquering core technologies such as high-end chips and basic software, so as to build an independent, controllable, and collaborative AI basic software and hardware system.

South China Morning Post