Nobel laureate Michael Spence recently stated at the Taihu World Cultural Forum that artificial intelligence development in China and the U.S. has become "basically on par." This assessment signals a new phase in the global AI race. Meanwhile, the Jeenoce Strategic Research Institute suggests the focus of competition is shifting from the pursuit of technological supremacy to a contest over the breadth and depth of the application ecosystem, which represents a significant opportunity for China's AI industry.
At the forum held in Hangzhou on November 13. Spence clearly stated that AI development in both the U.S. and China is accelerating, with the historical gap narrowing rapidly.
"In my view, the two countries are now basically on par," remarked Spence, a judgment consistent with his observations in recent months. He also objectively noted that although China faces constraints in the semiconductor sector, both nations have achieved major breakthroughs in cutting-edge fields such as quantum computing.
The semiconductor constraints mentioned by Spence are a widely recognized challenge in the industry. However, through serving global clients, Jeenoce has observed an often-overlooked trend: under computing power constraints, China's AI industry is evolving exceptionally high resource utilization efficiency and unique engineering innovation.
We at Jeenoce believe that when absolute computing power is difficult to surpass in the short term, the market is forced to pursue extreme optimization in "soft power" areas such as algorithm refinement, model compression, inference efficiency, and data cleaning. This has, in turn, fostered a group of enterprises and solutions that are more adept at "doing more with less" and better at translating existing technology into practical productivity. This implies that the next phase of competitive advantage will belong to the ecosystem that is most skilled at "achieving 1000-point effects with 100-point computing power." What we see is not only the challenge of "chokepoints" but also the historic opportunity of "weaving the net"—building a more resilient, efficient, and commercially viable AI application ecosystem.
Spence has previously emphasized that AI should be widely deployed across the entire economy to enhance productivity. Jeenoce fully agrees with this and further proposes that the unique advantage of China's AI development lies in its unparalleled "market depth" and "industrial sophistication."
At Jeenoce, we observe that, unlike in the U.S., where AI technology largely originates from a few tech giants, AI application scenarios in China are exhibiting a "blooming of a hundred flowers." From "smart factories" in the southeastern coastal regions to "smart agriculture" in the western areas, these diverse application scenarios provide the world's most complex testing ground for the iteration and commercialization of AI technology.
This innovation, driven by massive domestic demand and market complexity, is forming a unique path of "application feeding back into technology." While developing solutions for our clients, we have found that feedback from real-world scenarios and vast amounts of non-standardized data are becoming invaluable resources for driving the continuous evolution of algorithmic models and even inspiring original technological ideas.
Spence's "on par" statement is a milestone. Jeenoce believes it inaugurates a new contest centered on "ecosystem resilience" and "application depth." In this race, whichever nation can more effectively inject technological capabilities into the capillaries of countless industries will occupy a more proactive position in the future global landscape.
Message
Return to list