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Published: 23:48, July 22, 2026
The power of practical tech: how China is
winning global AI race
By Christopher Tang
I was recently in Paris, watching the historic streets blur past the window of an Uber. My ride was a BYD Seal, and my driver, a Romanian immigrant, was absolutely thrilled. He eagerly explained that a five-minute charging network would soon be operational across the city. More impressively, he insisted on demonstrating the built-in artificial intelligence. Speaking interchangeably in Romanian, French, and English, he commanded the AI to adjust the climate control, lower the windows, and find restaurant recommendations. The system executed every command flawlessly.
He had recently sold his Mercedes-Benz for this Chinese electric vehicle because it was cheaper, superior in quality, and far more economical to operate. This is a critical factor, given the skyrocketing gasoline prices triggered by the current crisis in the Middle East.
Before dropping me off, he turned and said something that stayed with me. He said that he felt China was doing something that could benefit common people like him. Hearing this made me proud of my Chinese roots, but as a professor observing global supply chains, it also struck a deep chord of analysis.
For years, Western policymakers have framed China’s technological advancements strictly through the lens of geopolitical threat. This reflexive posture is incomplete and strategically dangerous. By obsessing over containment, the West ignores a massive economic shift.
The shift from obscurity to application leadership
Not long ago, international recognition of Chinese brands was largely limited to legacy names such as Cathay Pacific Airlines and the Mandarin Oriental hotel group. Today, the landscape is transformed. Companies such as BYD, Shein, TikTok, and Lenovo are dominant fixtures of the global consumer economy.
When DeepSeek sent shock waves through the tech sector in 2025, it forced international observers to finally acknowledge the rapid maturation of Chinese innovation. However, the true divergence lies in how this technology is commercialized.
While the United States continues to dominate the development of foundational AI models, China focuses relentlessly on practical applications. This aggressive push for consumer utility was on full display in Shanghai at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference from Friday through Monday. The massive event featured over 1,100 participating enterprises. The conference marked a historic milestone. President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote address outlining Beijing’s vision for global AI diplomacy and emphasizing technological self-reliance. This effort culminated in a major signing ceremony where 29 countries formally established a new global AI cooperation organization. This is global governance engineered specifically for industrial and consumer markets.
If the United States and its partners continue to rely solely on defensive “risk management” through tariffs, bans, and sanctions without offering will eventually find themselves isolated from the rapidly growing markets of the Global South
Solving demographic constraints through industrial pragmatism
China’s pivot to applied AI is not driven solely by a desire for global market share. It is an urgent response to severe domestic constraints.
As China faces demographic shifts, sustaining economic growth requires a massive boost in productivity. Consequently, China is pushing AI innovations directly into critical sectors.
Beyond operating highly efficient dark factories with automated robotics, the integration of embodied intelligence is poised to revolutionize agriculture.
Over the past two decades, China’s agricultural workforce has more than halved. This exodus has left vast expanses of farmland to be tended by an aging demographic operating small plots with relatively low efficiency. Just as it overcame a historical lag in combustion engine manufacturing to dominate the global EV market, China is now leveraging its manufacturing capabilities to scale agricultural robotics.
Zhao Feng, founder of the robotics firm GrainCore Dynamics, notes that the shift toward embodied intelligence amid the current tech revolution will fundamentally reshape the agricultural status quo. Crucially, these AI applications are highly exportable. They offer an immediate, practical lifeline to sustain food production in other nations facing demographic collapse, from Japan to Southeast Asia.
The long-term asymmetries of market pull
This intense focus on human-centric utility extends deeply into daily life.
AI applications are already being deployed to help disabled individuals walk, actively empowering them to lead productive lives. Concurrently, domestic tech companies are accelerating their robotics programs. Firms like Xpeng are actively racing against Tesla to mass-produce humanoid robots. These machines are designed to perform essential, physically demanding tasks that older people cannot manage and younger people refuse to undertake.
Herein lies the analytical blind spot that many Western strategists consistently miss. They fail to account for the long-term effects of application-driven technology.
When AI and robotics solve immediate, painful problems like exorbitant gas prices, critical labor shortages, or severe mobility constraints, they create profound supply chain lock-in and fierce consumer loyalty.
A working-class driver in Europe or a struggling farmer in Southeast Asia will not reject an affordable, life-improving tool over abstract geopolitical concerns formulated in Washington. This dynamic generates a powerful, organic market pull that ideological arguments simply cannot counter.
While Western institutions focus heavily on restricting technology flows, China is actively promoting the export of solutions to global consumer pain points.
If the United States and its partners continue to rely solely on defensive “risk management” through tariffs, bans, and sanctions without offering will eventually find themselves isolated from the rapidly growing markets of the Global South
Ultimately, technological supremacy is not measured by how many raw language models a nation can produce in a laboratory. It is measured by how effectively those innovations improve human life in the real world.
The author is a distinguished professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
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