Chinese Ambassador highlights AI development at UK Forum

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to emerge as a defining force across nearly all sectors, driving a new wave of technological and industrial revolution, it also featured prominently on the agenda of the 2025 Sino-UK Entrepreneur Forum, held in London on Wednesday.

Delivering the keynote speech at the event, Zheng Zeguang, Chinese Ambassador to the UK, outlined China's progress in AI development, sharing compelling data and insights into the country's achievements and strategies.

China's AI Development and Governance

Ambassador Zheng emphasized China's encouragement of innovation in AI, noting that the country is now home to more than 4,500 AI-related enterprises, valued at around 600 billion yuan ($83.3 billion). China's AI chip market has surpassed 150 billion yuan ($20.8 billion). In 2024, patent applications related to AI from China accounted for 61.5 percent of the global total.

Zheng introduced several leading AI models developed in China, including Baidu's "Wenxin Yiyan," ByteDance's "Doubao," Huawei's "Pangu," and the open-source large language model DeepSeek.

China is also advancing its computing power, with its supercomputers comprising 45 percent of the global total. In 2024 alone, China's data production reached 41 zettabytes (ZB), representing a 25-percent year-on-year increase.

The ambassador noted that AI-driven new industries, business formats, and models contributed approximately 18 percent to China's GDP in 2024. He also highlighted China's role as the world's largest renewable energy market and equipment manufacturer, which supports AI-related sectors such as electric vehicle production.

Zheng has also talked about the challenges brought by the AI technologies, emphasizing the important of AI governance. He highlighted the Global AI Governance Initiative proposed by China in 2023, which outlines 11 proposals concerning the development, security and governance of AI. 

China-UK cooperation in the AI realms

While talking about cooperation between China and the UK in AI fields, the Chinese ambassador said it is key to prevent the ideological biases and overstretched concept of national security from disrupting China-UK sci-tech exchanges.

"We must uphold true multilateralism and champion international sic-tech exchanges. We must firmly oppose decoupling, severing of supply chains and 'small yard with high fence' and say no to exclusive blocs," said Zheng Zeguang.

China and the UK have been maintaining exchanges on sci-tech projects, such as co-authoring papers. He also mentioned about the moon dust samples loaned to the UK Open University. The samples retrieved by China's Chang’e-5 mission were only shared with seven institutions in six countries.

The development and governance of AI urgently requires international cooperation, said Zheng, expressing hope that businesses from both countries could deepen their understandings as well as exchanges to benefit people of both countries.