China's AI event World Intelligence Expo attracts few foreign firms in Tianjin amid global rift

The World Intelligence Expo held in Tianjin, a four-day trade exhibition aimed at promoting the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial equipment, has seen limited participation from foreign brands this year in a trend reminiscent of other technology trade shows in China recently amid a deepening divide with Western countries.

The event, which ended on Sunday, was hosted by China's Tianjin and Chongqing governments and boasted participation from 49 countries and regions. Most of the booths, though, were occupied by Chinese state firms such as China Electronics and China Mobile, as well as local tech giants such as Huawei Technologies and iFlyTek.

Few foreign firms showed up at the event, and the speaker list was dominated by Chinese tech executives, the Post observed during a Saturday visit. About 20 foreign firms, or 4 per cent of the 550 exhibitors, had booths at the Tianjin expo, most of which were grouped together in a corner of one of the eight exhibition sections, where foot traffic was light.

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Chinese exhibitors, however, were spread across the main floor, showing off their latest electric vehicles, robots and large language models, the tech behind chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The limited participation of Western firms at another major industry event in China underscores Washington's push for technological decoupling. Other tech-focused events have seen a similar trend. The World Semiconductor Conference this month attracted more than 200 exhibitors, down from 300 last year, with few foreign participants.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the World Intelligence Expo, calling for more global cooperation in AI development. The US, however, has been ramping up efforts to curb China's access to advanced chips and AI technologies.

The US Treasury Department on Friday issued draft rules to deter investment in China's chip, AI, and quantum computing sectors on national security grounds. Under these rules, investments from American entities in those areas would require official approval.

At the booth of Tianjin Infrastructure Investment Group, a rotating slide deck playing on a TV screen acknowledged the bottlenecks that Chinese companies face when trying to produce advanced chips, noting the lack of access to advanced lithography machines, precision materials and other parts of the chip-making process.

"The AI industry is the large-scale cluster computing between graphics processing units and optical modules," one slide read. "But the development of our electronic chips is challenged by the chokehold on our access to advanced manufacturing processes."

The infrastructure investment group is investing in optical chips technology to overcome these obstacles, it added.

Some foreign business delegates at the show were still looking for business opportunities. Heesun Yoon, an executive at South Korean lidar developer SOS Lab, said that China remains a huge market that cannot be ignored.

"We are here because the China market is much bigger than many other markets," Yoon said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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