Tag: Gates, Bill

Microsoft Debates What to Do With A.I. Lab in China

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When Microsoft opened an advanced research lab in Beijing in 1998, it was a time of optimism about technology and China. The company hired hundreds of researchers for the lab, which pioneered Microsoft’s work in speech, image and facial recognition and the kind of artificial intelligence that later gave rise to online chatbots like ChatGPT. The Beijing operation eventually became one of the most important A.I. labs in the world. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, called it an opportunity to tap China’s “deep pool of intellectual talent.” But as tensions between…

Blinken Visit Reveals Chasm in How U.S. and China Perceive Rivalry

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An austere greeting on the airport tarmac in Beijing sans a red carpet. A stone-faced handshake from China’s top foreign policy official. A seat looking up at the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, perched at the head of a long table. To international audiences, the optics of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s two-day visit to Beijing barely raised any eyebrows. Foreign ministers are rarely, if ever, met with much fanfare at the airport. And an audience with a head of state alone is a sign of great importance and respect.…

Bill Gates Meets Xi Jinping in First Visit to China Since 2019

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In a rare encounter with an American business figure, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, met Friday with Bill Gates as officials from Washington were set to arrive in Beijing in an effort to restart bilateral discussions. Mr. Xi told Mr. Gates that he was “the first American friend I met in Beijing this year,” according to People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper. Mr. Xi also said he wanted to build stronger ties with Mr. Gates’s philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help with aid to developing countries. The…