China kicks off largest AI conference in Shanghai as tech rivalry with the US heats up

South China Morning Post

July 3, 2024 at 5:30 a.m.·3 min read

China's largest artificial intelligence (AI) conference will kick off in Shanghai this Thursday, with mainland enterprises expected to present innovations that could help the country narrow the gap with the United States in the technology's development.

Premier Li Qiang will deliver the opening speech at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which concludes on Saturday, as the event's main theme of "Governing AI for Good and for All" highlights the country's efforts to lead the creation of vital AI standards amid stifling US sanctions and rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

The seventh edition of WAIC, where more than 1,500 AI-related products and systems are expected to be exhibited, will be held just days after Beijing scored a diplomatic win in the United Nations.

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On Monday, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a China-led resolution that calls on the international community to create a "free, open, inclusive and non-discriminatory" business environment among wealthy and developing nations for AI development.

Elon Musk speaks at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on August 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters alt=Elon Musk speaks at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on August 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters>

More than 500 enterprises are expected to take part in this year's conference, with the leaders of major tech companies expected to speak at the event.

A prominent invited speaker is billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk - the chief executive of Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies, as well as executive chairman of X, formerly Twitter - who last year extolled China in a live-streamed speech at WAIC as "being great at anything it puts its mind into", including AI.

Other speakers expected at WAIC include Baidu co-founder, chairman and chief executive Robin Li Yanhong; Ant Group executive chairman and chief executive Eric Jing; and Wang Jian, founder of Alibaba Group Holding's cloud computing unit. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Chinese AI champion SenseTime, headquartered at the Hong Kong Science Park, has said it will release at the event its large language model (LLM) upgrade SenseNova 5.5. LLMs underpin generative AI services like ChatGPT.

SenseTime's Hong Kong-listed shares on Wednesday closed 17.39 per cent higher to HK$1.62.

Attendees are seen at the MetaX booth during last year's edition of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. Photo: Bloomberg alt=Attendees are seen at the MetaX booth during last year's edition of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. Photo: Bloomberg>

While LLMs are expected to remain a hot topic at this year's conference, a number of Chinese semiconductor developers could potentially steal the thunder from other WAIC exhibitors.

Shanghai-based graphics processing unit (GPU) developer Iluvatar Corex, Moore Threads, Sophgo, and Tencent Holdings-backed start-up Enflame Technology will showcase AI chips designed to fill the void left by Nvidia in the domestic market because of US tech restrictions. Another domestic GPU developer, Biren Technology, is expected to take part in industry discussions at the conference.

Huawei Technologies' AI chip unit, Ascend, will host a closed-door forum during the conference, focusing on the computing power needed in this era of big AI models. The US government has threatened to impose more sanctions on Shenzhen-based Huawei after developing an advanced 7-nanometre smartphone processor.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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