During his inspection tour to Shanghai last week, President Xi Jinping reportedly paid close attention to the latest market trends in artificial intelligence products and praised the city’s accelerated progress in the industry.

Earlier, Xi stressed the need to make concerted efforts in solid basic research so as to achieve real breakthroughs in core technologies and promote AI applications across all industries. China should play its role in building up a global AI governance framework by refining its AI regulations.

Beijing’s grandmaster opening on the chessboard of the global AI battlefield aims to gain the upper hand in both the industry and the new economy. Core competitiveness is the key, and the goal is to develop full-parameter generative AI models, which have served as a focal point for global players. China is on the fast track in AI, which can be assessed in three dimensions:

Core competitiveness

For Beijing, it is evident that AI is not just cutting-edge technological know-how, but a matter of vital importance that gives the country a hard-earned strategic advantage. To stay at the forefront of the technological revolution, China must pioneer advancements in AI innovation.

As global economic dynamics undergo critical realignment, US President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of tariff cudgels has severely disrupted the international trade order. China — the world’s second-largest economy and the US’ “No 1 competitor” — has weathered the most severe storms in this trade war. Beijing, with foresight and preparedness, has already worked out a strategy to focus on “managing its own affairs well”, or, standing tall against the external pressure by boosting its inner strength in the AI industry.

The principle of “managing our own affairs well” places particular emphasis on industrial upgrades. In recent years, labor- and resource-intensive industries have relocated from the Chinese mainland to Southeast Asia, while new industries such as electric vehicles, photovoltaic energy, and AI have flourished, with AI at the top of the development agenda. It serves not only as an engine for the creation of new industries but also as a transformative force for upgrading traditional sectors. AI is the most powerful force among newly emerging industries.

China now ranks first in global AI paper publications, achieves consecutive breakthroughs in AI chips, accelerates widespread adoption of large-scale models, and drives deepening AI applications across sectors. With the core AI industry approaching a scale of 600 billion yuan ($83 billion), this innovation ecosystem that’s imbued with global competitiveness is taking shape.

Prioritize large-scale AI models

Full-parameter generative AI models have a transformative power in changing work patterns and lifestyles; in other words, they are going to reshape the world.

Public awareness of these large-scale AI models was triggered by DeepSeek. But this is just part of the story. Large-scale AI models encompass diverse categories, including language models, vision models, multimodal models, and foundational scientific models. For instance, waste-sorting robots equipped with “vision large models” demonstrate superhuman visual recognition capabilities.

Typically pre-trained on massive datasets, these AI models undergo performance optimization through instruction fine-tuning to meet service requirements. Characterized by vast parameters, extensive training data, and immense computational resources, these models are equipped to handle general tasks, follow human instructions, and conduct complex reasoning. If robots are the “limbs”, AI large models serve as the “brain”, so mastering this “brain” equates to controlling the key of AI. This explains why the central government prioritizes large-scale models as the linchpin of AI development.

Two principles

In the strategic deployment of AI large-scale models, the central government has emphasized two guiding principles: self-reliance and independent innovation, and application orientation.

The principle of self-reliance and independent innovation means building international collaboration and leveraging external resources while resolutely developing China’s indigenous AI software and hardware ecosystems as well as reducing dependence on foreign technologies to ensure China’s strategic autonomy.

The term self-reliance carries profound historical resonance for the Chinese people, reflecting lessons learned over decades of development. China, as front-runners in AI, must champion “self-reliance” to secure a promising future.

Now that the central government has a road map for strategic AI deployment, it is time for the SAR government and stakeholders with a big-picture view to align with the strategy and ride the trends of AI advancement

The principle of application orientation embodies market laws and not only guides the development of AI in the mainland but holds particular significance for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Despite robust R&D capabilities, the city faces challenges in transforming scientific achievements into commercialized products.

A prime example is DJI drones — a technology with Hong Kong origins that flourished in Shenzhen rather than locally. In the AI development forefront, Hong Kong must now prioritize the principle of application orientation and intensify its transformation efforts. If local conditions fall short in enabling such transformation, the city must proactively collaborate with mainland counterparts. Isolated development is no longer an option.

Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has long championed Hong Kong’s technological innovations. When he made an inspection tour of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in February, he stopped in Qianhai to meet and talk to Hong Kong entrepreneurs there, most of whom were tech-savvy forerunners in the AI industry. In his high-profile fact-finding visit to the SAR, Xia assessed the city’s technology potential at its universities and research institutions. He encouraged the city to play its part in facilitating and accelerating the commercialization application process of new technological achievements.

Now that the central government has a road map for strategic AI deployment, it is time for the SAR government and stakeholders with a big-picture view to align with the strategy and ride the trends of AI advancement.

The author is vice-chairman of the Committee on Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.