EV dominance, AI phones – how Chinese tech came to dominate the world

Chinese big tech is now a global player in ways that many industry insiders couldn't have imagined even 10 to 15 years ago.

From mobile phones to electric cars and Artificial Intelligence, Chinese brands have gone from unknown to ubiquitous at blinding speed. DeepSeek, Xiaomi, BYD, Tencent – if you haven't heard of them, you will soon.

Ten years ago there was hardly a notable Chinese presence at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona; now, the giant global tech fair is dominated by Chinese brands. From Huawei's huge exhibit to Xiaomi's latest show-stopping EV, China has gone from manufacturer to innovator?

But how did Chinese tech get here? For PwC's chief AI engineer Scott Likens, it's about top-down vision, five-year plans, and a future where AI is accessible and affordable for everyone.

"There's no doubt having the vision and investment from the top makes a lot of sense," Likens tells CGTN. "I lived in China for five years, so I saw the era of e-commerce and the five year plenum focused on e-commerce. 

"That was back in 2013 and you saw what happened – they created three or four of the biggest companies in the world."

That includes Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei.

China does things differently

Likens says China sets longer-term goals and works in public-private partnerships towards a master plan, making funding available and regulation more agile.

"Having lived there, the advantage I saw is they can get to scale so fast," he continues. "They have a large population. They have users that are digitally savvy. 

"So when they go after something, they can get it into the hands of people, and sometimes they don't wait till it's perfect – they get it out there to see what's working and what's not.

"I think the speed of scale is a very, very big advantage. And then of course, they can set these five-year plenums around key technologies like AI, and they just go all-in on it."

Xiaomi third in global mobile sales in 2024

For global mobile phone sales in 2024, Xiaomi was behind only Apple and Samsung. While Apple held around 19 percent of the market and Samsung was almost neck-and-neck on 18 percent, Xiaomi rose to 14 percent.

Other Chinese mobile phone brands enjoyed sales surges too – both Huawei and Vivo sold more phones than Apple in China last year.

One reason is the early adoption and incorporation in their phones of AI, something that China is heavily focused on.

"Of course, the vision and investment at that level is going to spur innovation," Likens goes on, "and we've seen it, we've seen some breakthroughs on some of the open-source companies.

"That energy is different – in the U.S. we're still waiting on the regulation. We really need to be looking at how we use regulation to actually create innovation versus stifling it.

"It's important from the top down to set that vision. Obviously, China can make the investment and then the innovation can happen."

For a new tech-savvy generation around the world, 'Made In China' has taken on a whole new meaning.