Foreign industry insiders and experts have spoken highly of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in China, saying they are amazed by the speed of innovation in the country.
The four-day 2026 World AI Conference kicked off on Friday in Shanghai. Themed "AI Partnership for a Brighter Future," the event includes more than 140 forums, bringing together 1,400 guests from home and abroad.
Matt White, Global CTO of AI at the Linux Foundation, has been to China more than 10 times in two years. What impressed him the most was the overwhelming density of innovation in China's AI development.
"[I have been to] over 100 anything from EVs and like car manufacturers, like to the robotics companies," White said. "Everything moves fast in AI, right? So those were the models that were all released the week the time that I was here. I was shocked that they were all being released at the time that I was here," he said.
Professor Otthein Herzog is an artificial intelligence (AI) expert from Germany and has been working at the Tongji University in Shanghai since he was invited 11 years ago. He is a winner of the China Government Friendship Award, which highlights the value he has created through international collaboration on artificial intelligence.
His colleague Max Milhauser shared his opinion on China's AI development.
"A certain openness to change and technology that is not always found everywhere, whereas in other parts of the world, first look at the problems and then at the solutions," said Max Milhauser, a German scholar.
Foreign experts say they are amazed by China's AI development
Rally participants gathered in the Japanese capital on Aug 9, which also marked the 81st anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, to voice strong opposition to the government's push to boost defense spending and revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the national Constitution.
Holding anti-war placards, chanting anti-war slogans, protesters warned that remilitarizing the nation would betray its pacifist ideals and endanger future generations.
"Defense spending keeps increasing. Based on Article 9 of the Constitution, Japan pledged never to wage war again, yet it keeps strengthening its military. I find this extremely dangerous. They are also trying to revise Article 9. So I believe that for the sake of future young people and children, Article 9 must never be revised. Japan decided never to repeat the mistakes of waging a war after its defeat in WWII. I think we should continue to safeguard that commitment," said a rally participant.
For many in the crowd, the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains a powerful moral compass as they believe that militarization offers no path forward for a nation that knows the devastation of war firsthand.
"Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered atomic bombings. Yet now Japan is going to deploy missiles. I believe Japan must never possess nuclear weapons," said another rally participant.
"I believe Japan has no future if it goes down the path of militarization. Nuclear weapons are absolutely bad for Japan," said a third woman, also a rally participant.
Beyond moral objections, some demonstrators said that Japan's economic vulnerabilities articulate that saber-rattling is a luxury the country cannot afford.
"I can't help but wonder what on earth a country with only a 36 percent food self-sufficiency rate would be fighting with. I have always been opposed to war, and I'm deeply dissatisfied with what the Takaichi administration is doing now," said another rally participant.
Other rally participants said that seeing revision of the Constitution could unleash unchecked military expansion, stripping away the very safeguards that have kept Japan at peace for eight decades.
"Article 9 of the Constitution is the key. If the nature of the Self-Defense Forces is elevated to a level beyond collective self-defense, which is explicitly written into the Constitution, it will allow the authority of the Self-Defense Forces to expand without limit. So no matter what, I want to prevent this from happening," said one more rally participant.
Japanese citizens rally against Takaichi's military expansion, constitutional revision
