Why China's AI Development Comprehensively Lags Behind the US - Pick Your Favorite Reason (Gemini 2.5 Pro Translated Version)

Viewpoints Blaming the External Macro Environment

US Suppression Theory: American imperialism, in collusion with the Western world, has imposed various blockades on our high-tech development, prohibiting Western capital investment in our country and the export of high-end chips to us. Lacking domestic alternatives, we can only struggle for survival in the cracks.

Over-regulation Theory: Our country’s regulation of artificial intelligence development is too strict. Our technology hasn’t even matured yet, and we’re already required to conform to certain values. No one dares to take responsibility, so development is constrained and hesitant.

Chinese Data Theory: Compared to English, the content on the Chinese internet is smaller in quantity and lower in quality. This significantly limits our country’s development of similar language-based artificial intelligence. Moreover, English as the lingua franca of academia severely restricts our scholars’ international exchange.

GPU Collateral Damage Theory: “Old Huang’s” (Jensen Huang of Nvidia) high-end computing chips started by serving the gaming industry. Our country’s restrictions on the gaming industry over the past 30 years greatly inhibited the development of high-end computing chips and, correspondingly, led to a shortage of talent in high-end computing program development. This has comprehensively caused us to lag in large-scale engineering.

Talent Drain Theory: The US can siphon off talent from all over the world; for instance, five of OpenAI’s “Seven Sages” are immigrants. Our country not only struggles to attract high-end talent in this field, but our top students also flock to the US after graduation. Ultimately, this forces us to fight against the whole world single-handedly, leading to our disadvantage.

Viewpoints Blaming Researcher Quality

Researcher Quality Theory: A large number of researchers in our country lack a correct research mindset, sufficient passion for their research, and a sense of lifelong responsibility for their work, leading to the low quality of our research outcomes.

Misjudged Path Theory: Our artificial intelligence research path is controlled by “academic warlords” who lack frontline experience and have biased judgments on many technological developments, ultimately leading to deviations in our overall research direction.

Open Source Limitation Theory: We are accustomed to achieving results by copying others’ open-source algorithms. Especially in earlier years, many low-level individuals in the internet industry rose to mid-level positions by feasting on open-source dividends. Now that others are starting to close their sources, these individuals lack the ability to lead their teams to technological breakthroughs.

Funding Original Sin Theory: Academic funding applications have become increasingly formalistic, rigid (like the “eight-legged essay”), and title-oriented. A large amount of funding is controlled by academic warlords and invested in projects that serve their interests but lack real significance, while many valuable applications from young scholars are crudely rejected.

Academic Opportunism Theory: Our evaluation systems only look at quantifiable metrics such as the number of papers, patents, R&D expenditure, etc. This forces researchers to engage in formalistic activities in these areas to compete for “hats” (prestigious titles/positions), rather than settling down to do meaningful research.

Viewpoints Blaming Cultural Thinking Patterns

Cultural Inferiority Roots Theory: Chinese culture has, since ancient times, only valued practicality and neglected the understanding and research of underlying principles. Even when the Western scientific spirit arrives on this land, it only results in a “southern oranges becoming northern trifoliate oranges” phenomenon (i.e., good things become corrupted or less effective when transplanted).

Outdated Education Theory: Our education system, from a young age, does not cultivate independent thinking and logical reasoning abilities. Instead, it is an exam-oriented, “force-feeding” (cramming) style of education, leading to students being unable to cope with deeper fields due to insufficient rational thinking skills.

Social Sciences/Philosophy Disadvantage Theory: While our country invests heavily in STEM development, it neglects the development of humanities such as social sciences and philosophy. Artificial intelligence research requires parallel development in sociology, linguistics, philosophy of science, etc. Lagging in these areas constrains our country’s AI development.

Textbook Original Sin Theory: Our country’s textbooks, especially at the undergraduate level, adopt the outdated Soviet system. Textbook organization is full of irrationalities, emphasizing engineering over science, leading to severe deficiencies in our students’ understanding of basic subjects.

Self-Media Original Sin Theory: Self-media (independent online media) is filled with a large number of low-quality paper interpretations. This makes our students accustomed to understanding developments in a field through these interpretations, neglecting to read the original papers themselves, ultimately leading to a knowledge system riddled with flaws.

Viewpoints Blaming Capital

Nature of Big Tech Theory: The essence of internet/IT giants is to sell products and services. New technological developments are not very meaningful for them to obtain excess profits through monopolistic behavior. Therefore, internet/IT giants would rather spend tens of billions on subsidies to grab traffic than increase investment to lead technological development.

Non-Compete Restriction Theory: Our pro-enterprise non-compete rules severely restrict talented individuals with ideas from starting their own businesses and also limit personnel flow between companies, leading to insufficient market competition.

Impetuous Atmosphere Theory: In this impetuous social atmosphere, capital lacks the commitment for long-term, in-depth R&D investment. Instead, it has a strong, keen desire to make quick money by chasing one gimmick after another. Even someone like “Li Xzhou” (a figure in the AI scene), who can hardly be called “capital,” dares to boldly “jump into the sea” (go into business) to make money, disheartening those genuinely committed to research.

Left-Wing Suppression Theory (using “←π” as a visual pun for “左派” - Leftists): A few years ago in China, there was a trend of hostility towards private entities and attacks on private entrepreneurs. In this environment, private economic development was restricted, and consequently, investment in cutting-edge technology also became conservative and cautious.

Capital Misallocation Theory: It’s not that capital isn’t investing money, but rather that it’s concentrated in companies that seem to have flashy gimmicks and endorsements from “big shots.” Small and micro-enterprises founded by frontline researchers, which are genuinely effective, cannot find or afford these endorsements and struggle to raise any significant capital.

Housing Price Original Sin Theory: The real estate financial bubble has caused domestic capital to shift from the real economy to virtual speculation. Compared to investing in ethereal and hard-to-implement artificial intelligence R&D, capital is more willing to join the trend of chasing bubbles. Additionally, high housing prices also lead to a drain of urgently needed AI practitioners from our country to overseas.

Market Decides Theory: Artificial intelligence must be implementable (“landable”) to attract investment. That is, if the market doesn’t have this demand, then naturally, capital will not be heavily invested in doing things that currently seem meaningless.

Viewpoints Claiming We Are Not Lagging Behind

Late-Mover Advantage-ism: Our country is still in a developing stage. These AI “gimmicks” from foreign countries are a strategic deception against us. We just need to wait for them to test out the paths, and then follow their paths to save costs to the maximum extent.

Technological Randomness-ism: Different countries and companies invest differently in various technological points. “OpenAI” (mockingly written as “偶喷AI” - Ou Pēn AI) was just lucky to have invested in some successful technological points that you happened to see. Prestigious companies like Google, “Meta/X” (mockingly written as “卖它艾克斯” - Mài Tā Àikèsī), are pretty much the same as domestic enterprises.

No First Place in Arts Theory (implying a subjective field where clear winners are debatable): Our AI technology is only slightly worse than that of the US empire; on the world stage, we are solidly second. Old imperialist countries like Great Britain (“代英” - Dài Yīng) or Asia’s Nobel powerhouse, Japan (“东瀛” - Dōngyíng), are being trampled under our feet. Those of you who maliciously exaggerate our gap are disloyal elements with ill intentions.

Observation Bias Theory: Our country is far ahead in fields like 5G communications, facial recognition, unmanned ports, smart factories, etc. You mortals just can’t see it. Don’t think that “ChatGPT” or “Sora” (mockingly written as “差特鸡皮涕” - Chàtè Jīpítì and “馊腊” - Sōulà) are so amazing.

AI Bubble Theory: The current development of so-called generative AI does not meet people’s expectations at all. People need AI-powered robots to help wash floors, handle clothes (or “bring clothes”), and “sweep up after kids” (or “deal with kids”), not to create things like poems and songs. Developing in this direction will only lead to a bubble.

Personal Recommended Viewpoint

Genshin Impact Original Sin Theory: Ah, it’s all because of playing Genshin Impact.