China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch by Agathe Demarais at Foreign Policy

More analysis pointing out the U.S. may be engaged in the wrong AI race:

Decades later, Washington’s approach to the race in artificial intelligence rests on a similar logic: If U.S. labs do not double down, China will pull ahead and be the first to reach the holy grail of artificial general intelligence—that is, cognitive abilities that match or go beyond human abilities. Maybe. In the 1950s, the U.S. count of Soviet missiles ended up being wrong. This time, Washington could be measuring the wrong thing altogether with its focus on technological benchmarks. Beijing instead measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. […]

While Washington focuses on the supply side—chips, data centers, and frontier models—Beijing treats AI as a tool to achieve broader long-term objectives, such as boosting manufacturing productivity, tackling a dire demographic outlook, supporting innovation, and fostering the diffusion of Chinese technology standards abroad. […]

The second pillar [of China’s AI plan] involves developing industrial applications for AI. U.S. consultancy IDC estimates that nearly half of China’s industrial firms had deployed specialized models or agents by mid-2025. That data is from more than a year ago—an eternity in the AI world—suggesting that the share of Chinese firms using AI is likely to be even higher now. Looking ahead, Beijing has even bigger goals. In January, China announced that it was aiming for 1,000 industrial AI agents, 500 application scenarios, and 1,000 showcase firms by 2027. Again, the focus is on applying AI widely and quickly, rather than top-notch benchmarks.

China seems to be focused on practical, immediate applications. Not on the frontier, but on good-enough. OCT 13 | REPLY