China’s artificial intelligence still needs to improve in six aspects, from ecosystem to funding, but the emergence of DeepSeek has significantly boosted the sector’s confidence in overcoming US restrictions, according to a mainland venture capital firm.
China and the US were the two top players in global AI development, with the former leading in humanoid robotics and open-source large language models, according to Zhou Qi, managing partner of GSR United Capital, which focuses on early-stage investments in advanced manufacturing, AI and biotech. The firm manages over 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) of assets.
“But we [China] are still behind some advanced economies like the US in terms of ‘soft power’,” Zhou said, referring to ecosystem, standardisation, funding, talent, branding and AI ethics.
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More importantly, China lacked a comprehensive ecosystem like the Nvidia-built Compute Unified Device Architecture, which allowed developers to use the US tech giant’s graphics processing units (GPUs) for creating applications, Zhou said.
He said that amid the tech decoupling initiated by the US, Chinese firms would have to open up their models to create a better ecosystem, while adding that overseas players would continue to follow the standards set by the Americans. The low participation of international developers and users limited the influence of China’s ecosystem in standardisation, he said.
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