Control, Innovation, and Billions: How China Is Building Its AI Superpower

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of daily life for many individuals, companies, and even governments. Over the past three years, the share of online content generated by AI has increased from less than 10% to 52%. Because online content exerts significant influence over large audiences and can, in particular, shape electoral outcomes, this technology has become another arena of competition among major powers. China stands out in this regard, having advanced further than any other country in controlling the information accessible to its domestic population and to external observers.

According to a Bank of America report published in June 2025, total spending on AI development programs in China is projected to reach between $84 billion and $98 billion, of which $56 billion will come from public investment, with the remaining funding also subject to state oversight. This represents a 48% increase compared to 2024. The Chinese government not only invests in AI and related technologies but also seeks to export its vision of how this technology should be governed to other countries (Table 1 presents planned AI investments by leading Chinese companies, which are, unsurprisingly, closely linked to the Chinese government).

In 2017, China’s State Council published a document stating that by 2030, the country aims to achieve a leading global position in artificial intelligence. The main driver behind this plan was China’s dependence on foreign technologies. U.S. company NVIDIA is a global leader in graphics chip production and also owns the CUDA programming platform for these chips, components without which it is difficult to imagine the development of artificial intelligence.

Since 2018, authorities in the United States have gradually imposed restrictions on exports to China of goods and technologies with potential military or strategic applications, including advanced-generation chips. In 2022-2025, these measures were further tightened, including through a U.S. government list of companies barred from receiving certain technologies without special licenses. The list includes dozens of Chinese corporations (such as Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Huawei Digital Technologies Co., Ltd., and Beijing Geling Shentong Information Technology Co., Ltd.) engaged in AI and high-tech development. Such actions have angered Beijing and are accelerating efforts to develop domestic technologies.

In July 2025, Donald Trump lifted all bans on chip sales to China, on the condition that NVIDIA pay the U.S. government 15% of its export revenues from China. However, in January 2026, it emerged that the People’s Republic of China instructed its companies to purchase NVIDIA chips only when “necessary”, without clearly defining what that entails.

China is pursuing an ambitious goal: to achieve leadership in AI while simultaneously reducing reliance on foreign technologies, particularly U.S. chips and platforms. To this end, the Chinese government is actively supporting domestic companies in developing large AI models, cloud services, and AI products.

The feasibility of these plans is illustrated by DeepSeek, China’s analogue of ChatGPT. Released on January 20, 2025, it surpassed the market leader in user numbers and, by January 27 of the same year, became the most popular free app in the United States on the App Store. DeepSeek complies with the Chinese government’s censorship rules and, as a result, has been fully blocked in some countries. In late January 2026, DeepSeek announced it was preparing a new AI model scheduled for release by the Chinese New Year (by February 17).

Thus, China is pursuing a systematic technology policy that combines public funding, strategic planning, and the active participation of leading AI companies. This approach enables the country not only to meet domestic demand for artificial intelligence but also to expand its global influence in the industry, while simultaneously maintaining control over technologies and security.