Chinese AI firms play it smart amid US tech curbs
Digital AI glasses are the focus at a Rokid booth at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. Photo: AFP
China's artificial intelligence companies have announced two new industry alliances, aiming to develop a domestic ecosystem to reduce dependence on foreign tech as they seek to cope with US export restrictions on advanced Nvidia chipsets.
The announcements were timed to coincide with the three-day World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai ending on Monday and came on the same day that the Financial Times reported that the United States has paused curbs on tech exports to China to avoid disrupting trade talks with Beijing and support President Donald Trump's efforts to secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year.
The conference also showcased a slew of new products, such as an AI computing system from Huawei that experts believe rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as well as consumer-friendly products such as several kinds of digital AI glasses.
The "Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance" brings together Chinese developers of large language models (LLMs) and AI chip manufacturers.
"This is an innovative ecosystem that connects the complete technology chain from chips to models to infrastructure," said Zhao Lidong, CEO of Enflame, one of the participating chipmakers.
Other manufacturers of graphics processing units (GPUs) in the alliance include Huawei, Biren, and Moore Threads, which have been hit by US sanctions that block them from purchasing advanced tech made with US know-how. The alliance was announced by StepFun, an LLM developer.
A second alliance, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce AI Committee, aims to "promote the deep integration of AI technology and industrial transformation".
Participants include SenseTime, also sanctioned by the US and which has pivoted from facial recognition technology to LLMs. Others are StepFun and another LLM developer, MiniMax, as well as chipmakers Metax and Iluvatar CoreX.
One of the most talked about products at the conference was Huawei's CloudMatrix 384 which incorporates 384 of its latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, according to US research firm SemiAnalysis.
Huawei's system design capabilities have meant that it has been able to use more chips and system-level innovations to compensate for weaker individual chip performance, SemiAnalysis said.
At least six other Chinese computing firms showcased similar "clustering" chip technology. Metax demonstrated an AI supernode featuring 128 C550 chips designed to support large-scale liquid-cooled data centre requirements.
Other events included Tencent's unveiling of its open-source Hunyuan3D World Model 1.0, which the company said enables users to generate interactive 3D environments through text or image prompts.
Baidu announced what it said was next-generation "digital human" technology that helps businesses to create virtual livestreamers. It features "cloning technology" that can replicate a human's voice, tone and body language from just 10 minutes of sample footage.
Alibaba was among those announcing AI glasses. Its Quark AI Glasses are powered by its Qwen AI model and are due to be released in China by the end of 2025. They will allow users to access the tech giant's map service for easy navigating and to use Alipay by scanning QR codes with voice commands. (Reuters)
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