2024年中国在人工智能方面有多创新（英）.pdf

itif.org How Innovative Is China in AI?HODAN OMAAR|AUGUST 26,2024 Chinas relentless drive and strategic investments in AI suggest it is only a matter of time before it catches upif not surpassesthe United States early lead in AI.KEY TAKEAWAYS China is the global leader in AI research publications and is neck and neck with the United States on generative AI.However,Chinas research publications have less impact than U.S.ones,with fewer citations and less private-sector involvement.Tsinghua University in Beijing is the breeding ground for Chinas leading AI start-ups,including four of the countrys“AI tigers”Zhipu AI,Baichuan AI,Moonshot AI,and MiniMaxwhich were all founded by faculty and alumni.Chinese large language models are closing the performance gap with U.S.models,with some Chinese models outperforming their U.S.counterparts in bilingual benchmarks.China has less private AI investment than the United States,but foreign investment in Chinas generative AI sector is growing,with Saudi Arabias Aramco leading the way.State-directed capital funds and financial aid are proving effective at supporting high-potential firms in regions of China the private sector typically underinvests inChinas open-source LLM ecosystem is rapidly advancing,with models such as Alibabas Qwen 1.5 and Zhipu AIs ChatGLM3 outperforming some U.S.counterparts and gaining recognition for their impressive capabilities.U.S.policymakers should not prioritize containing China,but rather craft and fund a comprehensive national AI strategy that addresses the twin goals of increased AI development and increased AI adoption to stay ahead.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY&INNOVATION FOUNDATION|AUGUST 2024 PAGE 2 CONTENTS Key Takeaways.1 Introduction.3 Background and Methodology.4 Chinas AI Industry and Market.4 Assessing Chinese AI Innovation.5 Chinese Government Provides Financial Support to Domestic AI Firms.5 Top Chinese Start-Ups are Pushing the Boundaries of AI.6 Chinas Frontier AI Models Are Closing the Performance Gap With the United States.8 Assessing Chinese Innovation In AI.10 AI Research.10 AI Patents.11 AI Talent.14 AI Infrastructure.15 Data.15 Compute.16 Company Case Studies.17 Zhipu AI.17 Moonshot AI.19 Chinas Government Policies Supporting the AI Sector.20 Chinas Strategy for AI Innovation.20 Chinas Industrial AI Strategy.22 Chinas Strategy for AI Resources.22 What Should America Do?.23 Endnotes.26 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY&INNOVATION FOUNDATION|AUGUST 2024 PAGE 3 INTRODUCTION Artificial intelligence(AI)refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines,enabling them to perform tasks such as visual perception,speech recognition,decision-making,and language translation.The field has advanced significantly in the past decade,and researchers have pushed the boundaries of AI technology with large language models(LLMs)that perform a number of tasks as well as humans.1 The United States has been at the forefront of AI innovation,benefiting from leading research universities,a robust technology sector and,until now,a supportive regulatory environment.However,China has emerged as a formidable competitor over the past decade.2 And the narrative that China is merely a copier is false and outdated.Chinas strong academic institutions and innovative research,particularly from Tsinghua University,has produced the majority of Chinas top AI start-ups,including the current top four generative AI start-upsZhipu AI,Baichuan AI,Moonshot AI,and MiniMaxall founded by its faculty and alumni.China now produces more AI research than the United States,and it is rapidly closing the performance gap with U.S.LLMs,especially in bilingual benchmarks.While China leads in research volume,the United States excels in translating cutting-edge research into real-world products,driven by its private-sector firms.This is evidenced by the United States producing more notable machine learning and foundation models,with 61 notable machine learning models compared with Chinas 15 in 2023,and 109 U.S.foundation models compared with 20 from China.Chinas financial landscape further underscores its rapid catch-up.Although the United States dwarfs China in private AI investment,foreign investment is beginning to trickle into Chinas generative AI sector.The venture capital arm of Saudi Arabias Aramco recently backed Zhipu AI in a$400 million deal,highlighting confidence in Chinas AI capabilities.The Chinese government is also stepping in to fill funding gaps,supporting domestic AI companies with state-directed capital and financial aids,proving particularly effective in supporting domestic AI companies in regions typically overlooked by the private sector.Despite extensive U.S.efforts to restrict Chinas access to advanced technology through export controls,these measures have had limited success.In fact,these measures have helped spur China to advance its homegrown ecosystem.Chinese companies are circumventing restrictions by training in public clouds wherever they can and innovating with developing on-premises private clouds such as Huaweis“AI-in-a-box”products wherever they cant.The reality is the United States efforts to hold back Chinas AI progress are unlikely to succeed.China is advancing rapidly in AI research and application,challenging the United States dominance in this critical field.Despite hurdles,Chinas robust academic foundations,innovative methodologies,and increasing foreign investment are propelling it toward becoming a leading AI powerhouse.The question is not whether the United States can contain China in AI,but whether it can keep ahead.To implement the goal of increasing AI development,U.S.policymakers should do the following:1.Stimulate private investment in AI R&D.2.Revitalize the federal funding process for AI.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY&INNOVATION FOUNDATION|AUGUST 2024 PAGE 4 3.Avoid policies that undermine U.S.AI leadership and bolster Chinese competitors.4.Develop a national data strategy to dramatically expand the availability of data for training AI models.To implement the goal of increasing AI adoption,U.S.policymakers should do the following:5.Create a national AI roadmap for adoption.6.Prioritize the rapid adoption of AI in the federal government.7.Support digital transformation.8.Incentivize AI workforce training investment.BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY The Smith Richardson Foundation provided support to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation(ITIF)to assess how innovative Chinese industries are.As part of this research,ITIF is focusing on particular sectors,including AI.To be sure,its difficult to assess the innovation capabilities of any countrys industries,but it is especially difficult for Chinese industries.In part,this is because,under President Xi Jinping,China discloses much less information to the world than it used to,especially about its industrial and technological capabilities.Notwithstanding thisITIF relied on three methods to assess Chinese innovation in AI.First,we conducted an in-depth case study evaluation of two leading AI companies.Second,we conducted interviews and held a focus group roundtable with global experts on the Chinese AI industry,allowing participants to speak anonymously unless they asked to be named in the report.And third,we assessed global data on AI innovation,including scientific articles,patents,talent,and access to infrastructure.CHINAS AI INDUSTRY AND MARKET Nations must have healthy AI ecosystems in order to develop innovative AI technologies and firms.For example,nations must have sufficient venture capital and private equity funding to connect inventors with the money,expertise,and contacts necessary to develop and sell their products or services.Looking at venture capital and private equity funding can therefore be an indicator of innovation capacity.In addition,the number of firms indicates the health of a nations ecosystem.Table 1:Overview of AI companies,investments,and investment value 201420243 Metrics(Absolute Number or Value)China(Mainland)United States Number of companies 1,944 9,500 Number of incoming investments 8,194 59,534 Estimated total value of incoming investments(millions)$85,650$605,416 When comparing the investment scene between China and the United States,the scale and scope in the United States is considerably larger(see table 1).With 9,500 AI companies,the United States hosts nearly five times as many companies as China in absolute numbers.It is INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY&INNOVATION FOUNDATION|AUGUST 2024 PAGE 5 important to clarify that in this report,we use data from the Emerging Technology Observatory,a database which relies on proprietary data about the number of firms in the AI category group on Crunchbase.Different reports may use varying definitions of what constitutes an AI firm,leading to discrepancies in existing literature.The Crunchbase AI category includes many different types of AI firms,including those conducting AI research,those developing AI-related products,and those applying AI to significant societal needs.Some studies use broader definitions of AI firms which results in counting more businesses as AI firms.It also seems to have far more funding flowing into these businesses.AI venture capital(VC)and private equity funding can be concentrated in a few large deals,which is why it is important not only to measure the level of funding in dollar amounts,but to also track the overall number of funding deals.In the United States,there have been almost 60,000 incoming investments in the past decade,dwarfing the almost 8,200 in China.And in terms of value,the difference is significant.Estimated investment values in the United States amount to around$605 billion,far outpacing Chinas$86 billion.Data on VC investments in AI by country from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD)support the finding that Chinese firms have less access to private capital.In 2023,the sum of VC investments in China was just shy of$20 billion,whereas in the United States it was approximately$55 billion.4 The Chinese government is trying to fill the gap with state-backed financial support.Assessing Chinese AI Innovation There were three key insights about how China supports original innovation capabilities from the experts we interviewed.First,the Chinese government provides financial support to nurture high-potential firms,especially in regions that might otherwise be overlooked,fostering a broader base for innovation.Second,there is an emerging set of Chinese AI start-ups,supported by the prestigious Tsinghua University,that are not replicating existing technologies but pushing the boundaries of AI innovation,particularly in generative AI.And finally,China is able to produce competitive,and sometimes superior,AI models compared with those from the United States,highlighting its capacity for high-level,original innovation.Chinese Government Provides Financial Support to Domestic AI Firms Several experts we interviewed noted that the Chinese government financially supports the development of domestic AI companies.According to experts,two of the most important mechanisms government uses are government guidance funds and subsidies.Government guidance funds are essentially state-directed capital funds.These funds are raised from both the public and private sectors and for projects that align with government objectives.5 According to 2024 research published in the National Bureau of Economic Research,between 2000 to 2023,Chinese government VC funds invested in 9,623 unique firms in the AI space through more than 20,000 transactions,totaling$184 billion.6 The definition this research uses for AI firms includes firms working on big data,image processing,facial recognition,natural language processing,machine learning,deep learning,neural networks,robotics,automation,computer vision,data science,and cognitive computing.7 Government guidance funds are used across a wide variety of strategic industries and business activities,but their impact has been found to be underwhelming.These funds have tended to INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY&INNOVATION FOUNDATION|AUGUST 2024 PAGE 6 raise less money than anticipated and have failed to deploy investments in many cases,and there have been too many with overlapping priorities leading to inefficiencies.8 But evaluating the funds created specifically for AI firms surfaces three important advantages:First,government VC funds are more spatially distributed than private funds,which are mainly based in Chinas wealthy coastal regions.9 Because Chinese government VC funds are spread more evenly across the countryincluding less-developed inland areas,the government is helping support high-potential firms in regions private VCs might overlook due to mobility restrictions and information gaps.Second,government VC funds invest in firms that initially show weaker performance indicators,but these firms end up growing faster than those funded by private VCs.Finally,government VC funds often invest in AI firms before private VC funds,and these government investments attract subsequent private VC investments.This pattern is especially strong when the government directly invests in firms with initially weaker performance indicators,suggesting that government choices are seen as valuable signals by private investors.The Chinese government also supports its AI sector through subsidies.For example,Beijing city authorities have introduced subsidies for firms buying domestically produced AI chips to boost Chinas semiconductor industry and lessen dependency on foreign technology.10 The initiative will provide financial support to companies based on a percentage of their investment in domestically controlled graphics processing unit(GPU)chips.In addition,at least 16 local governments,including the largestShanghai,are providing companies with vouchers to access subsidized processing power from large state-operated data centers that consolidate limited supplies of advanced chips.11 Top Chinese Start-Ups are Pushing the Boundaries of AI Five generative AI start-upsZhipu AI,Baichuan AI,Moonshot AI,Minimax,and 01.AIare among Chinas AI“unicorns,”meaning they are valued at over$1 billion and are at the heart of the generative AI ecosystem in the country.The press has dubbed them the“new AI Tigers of China,”as they represent a new wave of AI companies focused on LLMs,like their Western counterparts such as OpenAI and Anthropic.12 This is also to contrast them with what they call the older technology“dragons,”such as SenseTime,Megvii,CloudWalk Technology,and Yitu Technology that focused mostly on facial and image recognition technologies.13 One expert we interviewed said that while many of the new Chinese generative AI companies are trying to replicate OpenAIs success with ChatGPT,there is no clear leader or breakthrough application that has emerged as the most popular or most widely used in Chinaand some analysts report that customers struggle to determine which companys AI solutions are