Computer chip with Chinese flag, 3D conceptual illustration.
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BEIJING – For Chinese companies paying attention to US tariffs, the major difference between President Donald Trump’s first and second condition is the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.
Chinese companies work hard. Nearly every day in the past two weeks, Chinese companies have unveiled new AI products.
To give some names:
Short video company Kuaishou said Tuesday that Kling, an AI tool for generating videos, had exceeded 100 million yuan ($13.78 million) since its launch last summer.
Last week, Tencent updated its AI model to generate 3D visuals that can be used in games or 3D printing, and released the full version of the Hunyuan T1 Reasoning model. A few weeks ago, Tencent integrated T1 with the Yuanbao Chatbot app. This allows users to tap on DeepSeek’s R1.
Tencent said last week that the number of daily active Yunbao users skyrocketed 20 times in just one month. The company also shared how some farmers use AI apps to analyze soil conditions for planting.
Baidu launched on Monday a tool to build websites with conversation prompts and simple games, rather than writing code. Kunlun Tech, the parent of browser opera, upgraded the Mureka app on Wednesday to use AI to generate music.
As a manufacturing hub, China has a major advantage in terms of “physical AI.” This has many machines that can collect valuable data to train industry-specific models, so Maxwell Zhou, CEO of the autonomous driving software company, told CNBC on Friday to Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
Released in 2019, Deeproute.ai announced last week that it would be building a system in which automatic streaming vehicles will send parcels with simple voice commands such as “Pick up coffee from this store and send it to your apartment.”
Zhou said he hopes the system will operate in China by early next year.
It is unclear which AI companies will ultimately succeed, but analysts expect Chinese companies to be more likely to excel with the help of AI applications. AI tools can reduce costs for businesses and offset some of the impact of the economic slowdown.
Ding Wenzhi, investment strategist for global capital investment in China’s Asset Management, said the total impact of the technology is to raise expectations for growth in Chinese corporate revenue this year.
Revenues indicate whether the economy is really improving, especially under pressure from tariffs and other trade restrictions.
Goldman Sachs in early February estimated that a 20% increase in US tariffs on Chinese goods could reduce Chinese corporate revenues by 5% under the Hong Kong dollar terms.
But the bigger problem for the US and China is growing beyond tariffs.
After visiting China for this week’s meeting, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman concluded that it’s not tariffs or Taiwan that the US and Chinese presidents need to discuss right away, but AI as smart as humans.
The author of “The World Is Flat” compared the possibility of a US-China collaboration on AI to the Soviet US nuclear weapons management agreement.
