Chinese scholar calls US AI and supply chain initiatives doomed

Zheng Yongnian, dean of the School of Public Policy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, said that US initiatives to secure supply chains in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and critical minerals would not succeed. He said this in a video address to a conference organized by the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology, South China Morning Post reports.

According to Zheng, the US formats Pax Silica, the chip alliance and the rare earth alliance are directed against a third party and are therefore, in his view, doomed to fail. He also believes that restricting US companies' access to low-cost Chinese AI models would harm the commercial interests of those companies.

Competition between AI models

In the scholar's view, US technology companies are promoting expensive closed-source models that are better suited to affluent economies, including Japan and South Korea. Chinese open-source models, in his assessment, provide a comparable level of performance at a lower cost and are more accessible to developing countries.

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Zheng said that more than 40% of current US economic growth is linked to artificial intelligence. He warned that the collapse of the AI “bubble” in the United States could, in his view, cause negative consequences for the US economy, its partners and the global economy as a whole. The scholar also noted that the United States must ensure a sufficient number of practical applications for its AI technologies.

Call for cooperation

The scholar called a complete economic decoupling of the United States and China unfeasible because of the complementary nature of their economies. According to him, the United States has advantages in fundamental research, capital markets, software development, agriculture and energy. China, in turn, is strong in converting fundamental research into applied technologies, software, agricultural products and energy solutions.

Zheng called on Beijing and Washington to support the economic development of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to increase consumer demand. In his view, cooperation between the world's two largest economies to raise the global level of consumption could contribute to their long-term growth.