The US media often gets caught up in self-centered narratives, but we firmly believe that learning about global AI affairs, cultural nuances, and political variations can benefit us and our readers a lot.

In today's edition, we offer a comprehensive analysis of the latest developments in Chinese AI, written by Adina Yakefu, an AI researcher at Hugging Face, focusing on the Chinese-speaking community. This is accompanied by notable highlights from Generative AI events held in China from March to September 2024.

Introduction

In the early 15th century, Zheng He (also known as Chong Ho), a Chinese mariner, explorer during the early Ming Dynasty, led seven major naval expeditions, known as the "Voyages to the Western Oceans", his journey traced a path that went through Southeast Asia, the Middle East and then reached out to Africa. It was a bold move by China to establish diplomatic and trade relations with foreign lands, while exploring overseas opportunities. The word “出海” (Chu Hai, sailing aboard) has since held a special meaning in going global.

600 years later, China is back on the international stage with a strong presence abroad, starting as a global manufacturing powerhouse, from enabler by manufacturing and exporting goods, infrastructure to a game changer with information and communication technology, electric vehicles, followed by AI technologies. 

In 2024, Chinese companies expansion overseas has accelerated significantly. From AI applications to computing power and infrastructure, more and more Chinese AI enterprises are actively seeking global market opportunities. 

According to data released by Feifan research in June of this year, among 1,500 active AI companies globally, 751 are based in China, with 103 of them already expanding abroad, mainly focused on application fields. Some believe that the overseas expansion of Chinese AI companies not only demonstrates their significant progress in technology R&D, but also reflects their needs for leveraging their competitive advantages for worldwide growth opportunities. Others argue that as domestic markets become saturated and competition intensifies, expanding overseas may have become the only viable option for these companies. 

Who is Expanding Overseas?

The first ones that are grabbing the opportunities by going global are, without surprise, leading Chinese tech giants. With their robust resources and extensive experience, international development strategy has been in the making since day one. Startups, despite being in the early stages of commercialization, are also eager to join the overseas expansion, where AI became a land of opportunities since the internet, with entrepreneurs drawing significant attention overnight.

Leading tech companies like Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba have chosen to focus more on cloud computing and AI infrastructure when expanding overseas.

In March 2024, Tencent Cloud partnered with Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), a leading telecom company in Saudi Arabia. Together, they launched the "Go Saudi" program, which aims to transform the digital landscape of the Kingdom as part of its Vision 2030 strategy​.

In May, Huawei launched its Galaxy AI as part of a larger initiative to boost digital intelligence transformation in North Africa. An initiative which is part of Huawei's broader $430 million five-year investment plan aimed at accelerating smart transformation across the region.

That same month, Alibaba announced the construction of data centers in Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Mexico, alongside the release of the international version of its large model service platform “ Model Studio”.  

Notably,