Experts confident nation can close Sino-U.S. AI gap(3)

Landmark year

Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Security Technology and a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, said that 2024 should be the "year of application" for Chinese AI development.

"China can follow a development path of large models with Chinese characteristics that will support the development of large models in the direction of vertical sectors and industrialization to help accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces," he said.

Compared with traditional productive tools that are driven by factors such as labor, land and capital, new quality productive forces refer to technological innovation, data and smart or intelligent technologies.

"Developing a universal large model that surpasses GPT-4 in an all-around way may be challenging at the moment, but GPT-4 currently knows everything, yet (it is) not specialized," he explained.

"If we can excel in a particular business domain by training a large model with unique business data — and integrate it with many business tools within that vertical — such a large model will not only have intelligence but also possess unique knowledge," he said. "It is entirely possible for China to surpass its U.S. counterparts in a year or two."

Zhou Yu, chairman of Beijing Fanyu Technology Co, a startup specializing in natural language processing products and services, said Chinese and U.S. startups appear to be adopting different approaches to developing large models that drive generative AI.

"The U.S. puts more emphasis on the research and development of underlying technology and groundbreaking innovations. The U.S. is a world leader in terms of hardware and deep-learning frameworks," Zhou said.

"China focuses more on applications, and those launching these startups are better at adapting technology to various industries, and commercializing different applications. Chinese companies are also more flexible in creating personalized products and innovations," she added.

Zhou Hongyi from 360 Security Technology suggested at the two sessions in Beijing earlier this month that the government and State-owned enterprises take the lead in opening up more application development scenarios, so that large models can drive the digitalization of enterprises and various industries.

The Government Work Report released at the two sessions said China will step up research and development, applications of big data and AI, launch an AI Plus initiative, and build internationally competitive digital industry clusters.

The country will also strive to modernize its industrial system and develop new quality productive forces at a faster pace, give full rein to the leading role of innovation, spur industrial innovation through innovations in science and technology, and press ahead with new industrialization, according to the report.