Billionaires and Bureaucrats Mobilize China for AI Race With U.S.

(Bloomberg) — China’s tech sector has a new obsession: competing with U.S. titans like Google and Microsoft Corp. in the breakneck global artificial intelligence race.

Billionaire entrepreneurs, mid-level engineers and veterans of foreign companies alike now harbor a remarkably consistent ambition: to outdo China's geopolitical rival in a technology that may determine the global power stakes. Among them is internet mogul Wang Xiaochuan, who entered the field after OpenAI’s ChatGPT debuted to a social media firestorm in November. He joins the ranks of Chinese scientists, programmers and financiers — including former employees of ByteDance Ltd., e-commerce platform JD.com Inc. and Google — that are expected to propel $15 billion of spending on AI technology this year.