China’s AI Boom: New Models and Intensifying Competition
Chinese tech companies are aggressively expanding their artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, fueled by the release of numerous new AI models. Baidu’s recent launch of its ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1 models highlights the growing competition in China’s AI sector. This surge follows DeepSeek’s earlier release, which gained international attention.
Baidu’s ERNIE 4.5 is a multimodal model designed for collaborative optimization, demonstrating impressive comprehension abilities. ERNIE X1, a multimodal deep-thinking reasoning model, excels in Chinese knowledge questions, content creation, logical reasoning, and complex calculations, according to information provided to the Global Times.
Baidu isn’t alone in its AI ambitions. Alibaba Cloud released and open-sourced its new inference model, Tongyi Qianwen QwQ-32B, on March 6. This model offers a balance between performance and efficiency, matching DeepSeek-R1’s overall performance, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Furthermore, QwQ-32B significantly reduces deployment costs, allowing for local deployment on consumer-grade graphics cards.
Tencent’s introduction of Hunyuan Turbo S on February 27 provides near-instant response times, doubling text output speed and reducing initial delay by 44 percent, as stated in an online post by the company.
“Domestic large models, primarily trained in Chinese, capitalize on language advantages, positioning them to offer distinct strengths in areas like comprehension and creativity,” said Chen Jing, Vice President of the Technology and Strategy Research Institute, in an interview with the Global Times.
Advantages and Government Support
China’s development in large AI models is supported by key advantages in the global market. These include robust research capabilities and a flourishing open-source ecosystem. “Our strengths lie in our large population, abundant data resources, and diverse use scenarios,” Chen added, highlighting the companies’ expertise in data collection and annotation, which enhances their competitive advantage in practical AI applications.
The Chinese government is actively supporting and regulating AI growth through various policies. The 2025 Government Work Report emphasized large AI model adoption as part of its “AI Plus initiative.” This initiative aims to integrate digital technologies with China’s manufacturing capabilities and market strengths. The plan involves supporting the extensive use of large-scale AI models and developing new-generation intelligent terminals and smart manufacturing equipment, including AI-enabled phones, computers, and intelligent robots.
Regional Developments and Future Projections
Chinese regions are actively promoting the development of AI. Shanghai plans to strengthen AI development through an open and collaborative innovation framework, according to the 21st Century Business Herald. At the 2025 Global Developer Conference, Shanghai seeks to expand AI cooperation, promote open-source development, and drive innovation and data-sharing.
Guangdong has enacted 12 policies related to AI and robotics to accelerate industrial digitalization. Under the new policy, the province will fund up to 10 AI and robotics projects annually, providing subsidies of up to 8 million yuan ($1.11 million) per project.
According to a report from iResearch, China’s AI sector is projected to reach 811 billion yuan by 2028.
