China’s tech sector has a new obsession: competing with US titans like Google and Microsoft in the breakneck global artificial intelligence “arms race”.
Billionaire entrepreneurs, mid-level engineers and veterans of foreign firms alike now harbour a remarkably consistent ambition: to outdo China’s geopolitical rival in a technology that may determine the global power stakes.
Among them is internet mogul Wang Xiaochuan, who entered the field after ChatGPT from US-based OpenAI made its debut to a social media firestorm in November. He joins the ranks of Chinese scientists, programmers and financiers — including former employees of the TikTok parent ByteDance, the e-commerce platform JD.com, and Google —…
