China Steps Up AI Investment With $9 Billion Fund Backing Model Developers

China’s 60 billion yuan ($9 billion) state-backed AI investment fund has begun deploying capital into top domestic large model developers as the government accelerates efforts to integrate the technology across the manufacturing and consumer sectors.

The national AI fund has already backed a batch of high-quality projects, said Wei Wei, director general of the department of science and technology at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at a Monday press conference.