Last week’s AI summit in Shanghai was notable for the reduced presence of American firms. Elon Musk did not show up despite his investments in China. Clearly geopolitics had caught up with AI.
The summit, says Pranay Kotasthane, who heads the Hi-Tech Geopolitics programme at the Takshashila Institution, was an occasion for China to tell the world that it was no minnow in AI.
Kotasthane told StratNews Global on The Gist, “The really cutting edge stuff is happening outside the Chinese government. It’s the fact that Chinese models are doing really well. They are coming at a fraction of the price that American proprietary models are, and they are not that far behind the frontier models as of now.”
The popularity of Chinese models overseas has seen Xi Jinping play the role of communicator and salesman, trying to project his country as opening up to the world.
“China wants to be seen as this provider and a reliable provider of AI models, and it is trying to directly attack the US strategy of export controls, AI diffusion rules and upcoming rules which the Trump administration is pursuing. So China is trying to position itself as an alternative,” said Kotasthane.
Of course, China is anything but open. One just has to see the manner in which it has tried to acquire a stranglehold over the export and use of rare earth permanent magnets that go into EVs.
“And you have actually seen in the last month itself, they have brought out three decrees, which make it very difficult for any investment to go out of China,” Kotasthane pointed out, adding that “They have put very vague national security restrictions.
“So if a Chinese company wants to establish a rare earth investment in India or any other country, they have to go through lots of licenses, lots of checks, and most likely they’ll not even be granted those. Classic hypocrisy.”
Tune in for more in this conversation with Pranay Kotasthane of the Takshashila Institution.
