China is spending billions to become an AI superpower

When OpenAI blocked China‘s access to its advanced artificial intelligence systems last July, Chinese coders shrugged. They would rely instead on open-source systems, where the underlying technology is shared publicly for others to build on.

At the time, that mostly meant turning to another popular American product made by Meta.

But in the year since, there has been a major shift in the global race to develop advanced AI. Chinese companies such as DeepSeek and Alibaba have churned out open-source AI systems of their own that rank among the world’s top…