Catenaa, Friday, July 25, 2025- The World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which will be held this weekend in Beijing, will look to propel China’s ambitions to leapfrog the US in artificial intelligence and profit from that drive.
This year’s attendance may hit a record as it’s taking place at a critical juncture in the US-Chinese tech rivalry.
This week, US President Donald Trump unveiled his so-called AI Action Plan, a sort of call to arms to ensure the country keeps its lead in the post-ChatGPT epoch.
At the same time, the emergence of DeepSeek in January galvanized a generation of Chinese developers to ride a nationwide investment and innovation wave.
From Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to fledgling firms such as Minimax, the country’s aspirants in the field have since moved aggressively to try and close the gap with the likes of OpenAI and Google.
The Shanghai conference rundown for now remains largely unknown, as it has in years past, just days before kickoff.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend, and tech leaders from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to ByteDance Ltd. and startups like Zhipu AI and Moonshot are likely to turn out in force.
Downloads and usage of DeepSeek models have slowed, as has the pace of new model rollouts that peaked over the spring at once every few days.
Now, much of the industry talk centers on why DeepSeek’s R2, the follow-up to its seminal R1, hasn’t yet emerged. Local media have blamed everything from Liang’s perfectionist streak to performance glitches.
The conference gets underway days after the US leader signed executive orders to loosen regulations and expand energy supplies for data centers.
Beijing wants AI to become a $100 billion industry by 2030. At the Communist Party’s April Politburo study session, Xi emphasized that China must push for breakthroughs in critical areas like high-end chips and AI research.
