China AI Leaders Warn of Widening Gap With US After $1B IPO Week

Key Highlights

• “A massive amount of OpenAI’s compute is dedicated to next-generation research, whereas we are stretched thin — just meeting delivery demands consumes most of our resources,” Lin said during a panel at the AGI-Next summit in Beijing on Saturday.
• “It’s an age-old question: does innovation happen in the hands of the rich, or the poor?” The event, co-organized by Zhipu and Tsinghua University, followed market debuts this week in which Zhipu and Shanghai-based MiniMax Group collectively raised more than $1 billion.
• MiniMax shares more than doubled on their Friday debut, while Zhipu has climbed 36% since its debut a day earlier.
• Still, China’s AI heavyweights struck a cautious note on the chances of overtaking the US in developing state-of-the-art models at the gathering in Zhongguancun, a technology hub often described as Beijing’s Silicon Valley.
• Joining Lin in that assessment were Tang Jie, Zhipu’s founder and chief AI scientist, and Yao Shunyu, who recently joined Tencent from OpenAI to lead the AI push for China’s most valuable company.