China's strategic planning in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector has helped place the country at the forefront of the global AI boom, said an industry professional.
The rapidly evolving industry has been full of pleasant surprises in recent weeks, particularly with the rise of Deepseek R1, a Chinese model that rivals OpenAI's ChatGPT but at a fraction of the training cost.
Meanwhile, the AI Action Summit is currently underway in Paris, France, from Monday to Tuesday, bringing together representatives from nearly 100 countries along with over a thousand stakeholders from the private sector and civil society to discuss global AI governance and other key topics.
In an exclusive interview with China Global Television (CGTN) on Monday via video link, André Quemé, founder and CEO of Latam China Tech, a company promoting cross-border sci-tech cooperation, discussed China's role in the ongoing global AI boom, highlighting that the success of China's latest AI models is the result of combined efforts between government and businesses.
"I believe that we see now a global frenzy about artificial intelligence (AI) and very much actually comes from what China has been producing, developing. We see people actually crazy about the work of Deepseek R1, the new model, but China has been producing a lot of research in the topic of AI. This happens not only because of the work of an individual entrepreneur or of a genius tech leader or maybe of an engineer, but this is the next structure that was (made) ready by the country, that was well-planned by the country to actually develop those industries. So we see for example, we have the intelligence development plan of 2017," the CEO said, referring to the Chinese government's AI development plan which aims to make China a global leader in AI innovation and applications by 2030.
Though a media frenzy has centered around Deepseek's success, Quemé pointed out that its new model is not alone among China's emerging AI competitors.
"There's actually a lot of work being done -- Baidu with Ernie, we see Alibaba with Qwen. This is a result of efforts from the country to actually develop this industry," he said.
The industry expert stressed that AI's growing capabilities are increasingly posing implications for society at large, calling for efforts to shape its impact.
"AI is impacting now nowadays several industries we can see like manufacturing and logistics, finance, but also the daily business operations of several different types of organizations. I think this is important to be very well aware. It not something for now. It's not just a trend. It is actually a need for many societies, actually, to be working, to having AI as a tool. You can use AI to guide you to research. You can use AI in daily life nowadays," Quemé said.
"In the future, actually, AI will be more pre-eminent, making automatic decisions. So it's very important to have a very well-built, ethical, but also a localized model in existing intelligence planned, to actually think about the development of the country and of the society," he added.
China's AI planning pays off as industry booms: industry professional
A senior Finnish diplomat has expressed strong confidence that Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's ongoing visit to China will yield tangible business outcomes in key areas including the green transition.
Marko Tiesmaki, Minister Counselor at the Finnish Embassy in Beijing, was speaking with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) on Sunday as Orpo arrived to start a four-day official visit to China on the same day.
Tiesmaki believes the prime minister's visit will help further reinforce the strong diplomatic relations between Finland and China, which have spanned decades and have been strengthened through regular high-level meetings in recent years.
With Opro leading a delegation of executives from over 20 Finnish enterprises, Tiesmaki said he expects there will be several "concrete business takeaways" from the trip, with new agreements and contracts opening up new opportunities for various companies.
China is one of Finland's key trading partners, with cooperation focusing on areas such as the low-carbon economy, the circular economy and climate change mitigation.
In 2023, there were over 200 subsidiaries of Finnish companies operating in China, generating a turnover of more than 14 billion euros (16.5 billion U.S. dollars). In 2024, Finland's goods exports to China reached 3.5 billion euros and service exports totaled 1.82 billion euros, while goods imports from China amounted to 7.5 billion euros.
Tiesmaki said that many more Finnish companies are keen to tap into the vast potential of the China market.
"We have at the moment about 250 Finnish companies that we are closely following here [and there are] up to 300 companies we are discussing that are looking into coming into China," he said
"What I personally think and observe, one, is that China has a very strong ecosystem for production manufacturing. And the second thing is that for newcomers, especially, bringing a new innovation from Finland and taking the benefit of the China market, and helping it to scale up and putting them into commercial use, is a very strong combination," he continued.
Tiesmaki also emphasized that the green transition -- an field where Finland is already thriving as it pursues its target of becoming carbon neutral by 2035, 15 years ahead of most other European countries -- is another key sector for cooperation with China, as Finnish firms look to leverage their own innovative solutions.
"The green transition that China is very actively embarking on is a huge opportunity for Finnish companies. Finland is living in the forest. Many Finnish companies for decades already have developed solutions for the energy transition, developing circularity, making sure that there are sustainable solutions available. I believe we have a lot of these type of proven solutions already developed in the Finnish market where China is now moving into. And that gives a natural win-win combination by bringing this competence and applying them into the China market," he said.
Regarding tourism, Tiesmaki noted a 20-percent increase in visitors from China, while eligible Finnish passport holders are now able to enter China visa-free thanks to an expanded policy. With the deepening cooperation and ties between the two countries, the official expressed hope that more flight routes will be opened up to help encourage travel.
"We have, of course, high hopes because we expect that there will be more flight capacity added between our countries. So, if everything goes as planned, there should be 50 percent more flight capacity between China and Finland and this all feeds into the positive development," he said.
Finnish PM's visit to China to deliver concrete business outcomes: official
