Just a few years ago, China was on track to challenge United States dominance in artificial intelligence. The balance of power was tilting in China’s direction because it had abundant data, hungry entrepreneurs, skilled scientists and supportive policies. The country led the world in patent filings related to artificial intelligence.Today, much has changed. Microsoft — an icon of American technology — helped the start-up OpenAI usher its experimental chatbot, ChatGPT, into the world. And China’s tech entrepreneurs are shocked and demoralized. It has dawned on many of them that despite the hype, China lags far behind in artificial intelligence and tech innovation.“Why ChatGPT wasn’t invented in China?” they asked. “How big is the ChatGPT gap between China and the U.S.?” and “The Chinese equivalent of ChatGPT? Don’t take it too seriously.”They’re also asking more fundamental questions about the country’s innovation environment: Have censorship, geopolitical tensions and the government’s growing control of the private sector made China less friendly to innovation?“The development of any signific …
