China Unveils Ambitious 10-Year Plan for Nationwide AI Integration

China Unveils Plans to Establish a Fully AI-Powered Economy

As the western world braces for the "pop" of an enormous AI spending bubble, it seems China is going all-in on the AI hype. Yesterday, the Chinese State Council -- the government body responsible for carrying out Chinese Government policy, sort of like the executive branch of the US -- released its ten-year plan for AI development. By 2035, it declares, AI will become a "key growth engine for the country's economic development," enabling the People's Republic to "fully enter a new stage of development in the intelligent economy and intelligent society, providing strong support for the basic realization of socialist modernization." In other words, China isn't being shy about its ambitious plans for the buzzy software. The extensive document highlights six main pillars of society expected to be deeply integrated with AI by 2027. These include science and technology, citizen wellbeing, industrial development, consumer goods, governance, and international relations. Specifically, China expects to use AI to improve all manner of national development, from the way humanities scholars conduct research to the way ecologists monitor changes in the environment. By 2030, the plan says that AI should have a usage rate of 90 percent, essentially becoming a new type of infrastructure. By this point, the government asserts that AI will become a "major growth driver of China's economy." China pursued similar state-led tech development with its "internet plus" plan, which successfully transformed the internet into a major component of its economy. And by 2035, the plan says AI will have completely reworked Chinese society, implementing a new phase of economic and social production. It's a lofty task with a ton of implications -- not only for the People's Republic, but for the entire world. That in mind, the State Council insists that AI should be treated as an "international public good that benefits humanity." To that end, it stresses the importance of open-source AI development, helping countries of the Global South build up their own tech sectors, and supporting the UN as the leader in AI regulation. While China's AI industry is rising -- as evidenced by the stunning success of the open-source AI platform DeepSeek earlier this year -- its models still lag months behind US AI in terms of performance, in large part due to constraints imposed by western nations. Still, the People's Republic is rapidly closing the gap. Near the end of 2023, US AI models outperformed Chinese models over 13 percent of the time in general reasoning tests, according to FOX Business News. By the same time in 2024, that number was down to 8.1 percent. The State Council's ten-year plan hopes to further close the lead by strengthening key areas important to AI development, such as basic model performance, security measures, data supply, and power management -- some of which are already vastly ahead of the US. Whether Beijing can deliver on its massive goals using the often faulty software remains to be seen. If other nationally-coordinated plans are any indication though, the country might just be in for a massive overhaul.

Beijing Sets Ambitious Targets for Nationwide AI Integration Over 10 Years - Decrypt

The move underscores Beijing's bid to outpace Western rivals in artificial intelligence. China is aiming to achieve a 70% penetration rate of AI technologies within the next couple of years, enabling its population to utilize "next-generation smart terminals, intelligent agents, and other applications" by 2027, according to a State Council directive that sets the country's most ambitious artificial intelligence targets to date. The policy aims to "reshape modes of production and everyday life" and "enable a revolutionary leap in productive forces," mandating the integration of AI across technology, industry, consumption, governance, welfare, and international cooperation. By 2030, penetration rates are expected to reach 90%, with a complete transition to an "intelligent economy and intelligent society" by 2035, according to the council. Meeting the 2027 target means that 980 million Chinese citizens will regularly use AI-powered devices or services. For context, China's smartphone penetration hit 70% in 2018, eight years after the iPhone's local launch. Beijing expects similar AI adoption within the next three years. These targets far exceed Western timelines. The U.S. National AI Initiative Act contains no concrete adoption mandates. The EU's AI Act focuses on risk management rather than deployment. Meanwhile, other nations are scrambling to keep pace. Canada boosted its AI strategy this year. Taiwan has also published a plan to generate over $510 billion in AI technology by 2040. Egypt's Digital Builders program, backed by Microsoft and Amazon, aims to train 100,000 AI specialists by 2030. The aggressive timeline builds on existing momentum from Chinese AI companies like DeepSeek, whose models already power various applications, including Shenzhen's surveillance systems, voice controls in Geely vehicles, and diagnostic tools in nearly 100 hospitals. Longgang County, one of nine districts in Shenzen, cut administrative approval times by 90% after adopting Deepseek's AI. The startup has been successful despite U.S. export restrictions, which are specifically designed to prevent China from winning the AI war with American hardware. The State Council's directive calls for "AI-native enterprises whose underlying architectures and operating logic are based on AI" and encourages enterprises to incorporate artificial intelligence into strategic planning. It also calls for promoting "intelligent interconnection of everything" across smart terminals and product ecosystems. The Chinese policy promises to "help Global South countries build AI capabilities" through open-source technology and computing resources, positioning Beijing as an alternative to models presented by the West. It specifically mentions "treat[ing] AI as an international public good for the benefit of humankind." Industrial applications include "intelligent agricultural equipment such as smart farm machinery, agricultural drones, and agricultural robots" in farming, while the service sector must adopt "unmanned services" alongside human workers. But the financial services, logistics, and legal sectors would need to undergo significant transformation to achieve such goals, not to mention the growing pains that will accompany the continued evolution of the tech. The policy acknowledges risks including "model opacity (black-box), hallucinations, and algorithmic discrimination," establishing governance frameworks for "natural persons, digital persons, and intelligent robots," suggesting preparation for AI agents requiring legal status. The State Council's language leaves little room for interpretation: regions and departments "shall closely integrate these opinions with actual conditions" and "ensure tangible results," it said.