06 April 2024 – Following Jack Ma’s exit in a leadership change last year, Joe Tsai, co-founder of the massive Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, took over as group chairman. Tsai recently emphasized China’s place in the global artificial intelligence (AI) competition.
Tsai stated that China needs to catch up with Western nations in the development of artificial intelligence and is finding it difficult to do so. In an interview with Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management in Norway, on the podcast “In Good Company,”
He pointed out that when it comes to the advancement of AI technology, prominent American companies like OpenAI and Google are at least two years ahead of Chinese giants like Alibaba. Tsai said that the US’s strong prohibitions on the export of AI chips to China were partially to blame for China’s technological backwardness.
Conclusion
Tsai expressed optimism that China would soon be able to produce its GPUs, which are essential for the spread of artificial intelligence, even if she acknowledged the negative consequences on Alibaba’s cloud business and high-end computer services.