What a visit to China’s AI labs reveals about the battle for global soft power

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Aug 1, 2026 #Alibaba Group Holding, #Ant Group, #Beijing, #China, #China–US technology contest, #donald trump, #Fudan University, #Global South, #Hangzhou, #Huawei, #Kimi-K, #moonshot ai, #SCMP Tech, #Shanghai, #Washington, #World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation

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What a visit to China’s AI labs reveals about the battle for global soft power

The ultimate prize in AI is not just owning the technology, but having the power to dictate rules, frame ethics and command global influence

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The ink-wash map of AI, with chipmakers as mountains on islands and theories flowing like rivers. Photo: Wency Chen

Wency Chenin ShanghaiPublished: 6:30pm, 1 Aug 2026

Inside the exhibition hall of a Shanghai-based artificial intelligence research institute, an ink-wash map covered an entire wall, immediately drawing your attention.

It was a cartography of AI: chipmakers were rendered as mountains on islands and algorithms as jagged mountain ranges, while questions of privacy, fairness and machine consciousness drifted at the edges like uncharted islands.

Foreign guests and I leaned in, tracing the brushstrokes.

“Why is Huawei’s chip placed right at the estuary?” someone asked.

“And why are AI ethics drawn as twin peaks?”

A staffer reminded us, more than once, that it was art – not an official statement of facts.

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