AI, superconductor experts joined Chinese summer leadership retreat in Beidaihe

Name: Is China’s technology falling behind in the race for its own ChatGPT?
Uploaded: 2023-08-09T10:59:57.000Z
Duration: 8 min 54 s
Description: Is China’s technology falling behind in the race for its own ChatGPT?

Theme of the annual gathering was ‘high-level scientific and technological self-reliance’, according to state media

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Cai Qi (front row, centre), the president’s chief of staff, meets experts invited to the Beidaihe summer gathering in Hebei province on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua

Sylvie Zhuangin Beijing

Published: 6:59pm, 9 Aug 2023

Experts on artificial intelligence and superconductors were among those invited to join China’s leadership for their summer retreat in Beidaihe, according to state media.

Some 57 scientists at the “forefront of domestic technology” were at the seaside resort east of Beijing with top Communist Party leaders for seven days until Monday, official news agency Xinhua reported.

They were some of the more than 1,300 experts invited to the annual gathering at Beidaihe since 1998, according to the report on Tuesday.

The arrangement can shed light on the key concerns in Beijing. The report said the theme for this year’s retreat was “high-level scientific and technological self-reliance” – a priority for Beijing to counter US moves to block China from developing cutting-edge technologies such as AI.

“[We] hope all experts … make new and greater contributions to achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance,” the president’s chief of staff Cai Qi told the experts at Beidaihe, according to Xinhua.

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Is China’s technology falling behind in the race for its own ChatGPT?

The experts were mostly from areas that are critical to Beijing’s ambitions, including AI and aerospace technology, the report said, calling them “a source of glory for the nation”.