Artificial intelligence becomes China’s national survival issue: Expert

ANKARA

China is asserting its presence in the artificial intelligence (AI) field, long dominated by the US, as Beijing increasingly views the technology as vital to its “national survival” amid a broader struggle for global influence, a researcher said.

Musab Ergani, a research assistant at the Turkish Diyanet Foundation’s Center for Islamic Studies (ISAM), told Anadolu that the global AI race is primarily between the US and China, with Europe trailing behind.

Ergani said China’s motivations differ fundamentally from those of Western countries. While the US views AI as a trillion-dollar tool for technological and economic dominance, China sees it as a matter of technological independence and sovereignty.

“The prevailing opinion in China is to associate its ‘Century of Humiliation’ — a period spanning across 1839–1949 — with technological backwardness against Western imperialism, which is why, for China, AI is deemed as a tool to establish national sovereignty rather than a market share of commercial opportunity,” he said.

Ergani said this perspective has enabled Beijing to mobilize large-scale resources, provide energy subsidies and tolerate high economic costs to secure technological autonomy, driven by what he described as a survival-focused national strategy.

He pointed to the launch of DeepSeek R1, a Chinese large language model introduced in January, as a key moment in the US–China AI competition. The model, he said, demonstrated China’s ability to counter hardware restrictions through an “asymmetric” strategy.

“China proved it can turn restrictions into advantage by compensating for its lack of raw processing power with more efficient algorithms,” he said. “That the DeepSeek model was trained with a modest budget of only $5.6 million and delivered a similar performance compared to the billions of dollars’ worth American competitors shook the US stock markets.”

Ergani stated that China is run by a hybrid structure where the state acts as "an orchestra conductor," while the balance between central planning and the free-thinking environment needed for innovation remains one of the country's greatest paradoxes.

He noted that more than $900 billion in capital was mobilized between 2014 and 2024 through government guidance funds.

“Beijing is trying to follow this hybrid path with the ‘state-regulated, market-driven’ formula, but this model, which focuses on production volume rather than being market-oriented, has the risk of inefficient distribution of resources,” he said. “China promotes the private sector to achieve national goals without stifling market dynamism, while trying to keep a tight rein on areas the state deems as uncontrolled growth via strict regulations.”

Ergani emphasized that the Al race is not only about technological superiority but also about a legitimate struggle over who gets to set the rules of the game, and China is ambitious in transforming its technical capacity into normative power.

He said China’s approach, which emphasizes “cyber sovereignty” and the state’s right to control the digital sphere, appeals to many developing countries, often referred to as the Global South.

He cited Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s call in July 2025 for the establishment of a new global AI cooperation mechanism under the UN.

“Even if China can’t technically take the lead, it aims to make its own standards the norm or to erode the Western-centric norms,” he said.

Ergani said the competition over AI will shape the global balance of power but stressed that it extends beyond technology alone.

“The AI competition is part of a struggle for hegemony, in which the codes of the global order are being rewritten,” he said.

“As China aims to become the world leader in AI by 2030, the next five years will be exciting, and the outcome of the race will be determined by technical superiority and by which side manages its internal issues better,” he added.