China should seize new AI opportunities set to reshape global power dynamics, People’s Daily research unit says

China should seize the artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities that are set to reshuffle the geopolitical and economic landscape to create a new “international pattern and order”, according to a report published on Monday by the People’s Daily research unit.

The development of the “intelligent internet” – which integrates the new wave of AI with the traditional internet and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and computing networks – is giving rise to an “intelligent revolution”, which will lead to deep economic and societal changes, says the research unit.

Any nation that can master AI innovation and its applications, along with data, computing and algorithms, can break the current global power balance and determine the future shape of global economics, according to the research unit belonging to the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece.

“Major countries around the world have taken the development of AI as a key strategy to enhance competitiveness and to safeguard national security,” according to the report. As such, it is key to gain advantages in core technologies, top talent, as well as standards and norms, it added.

The report comes as China continues to lock horns with the US over a range of strategic technologies, including semiconductors and AI, with the battle intensified by the launch of Microsoft-backed start-up OpenAI’s conversational bot ChatGPT late last year.

The San Francisco-based start-up’s chatbot’s ability to understand, summarise, and generate humanlike content has spurred on Chinese tech firms to catch up, amid expectations that the new tech may drive a new wave of industrial transformation.