The Nikkei Asian Review reported that Chinese startups and technology industry used to be a strong competitor to the United States, even becoming a pioneer in some technological fields such as artificial intelligence, mobile payment, transportation and delivery, worthy of developing countries to study and catch up. But since the mouth of billionaire Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, with the Chinese government by 2020, makes Beijing determined to rectify the operations of startups and large technology companies through new regulations. China has gradually lost its aura and its inherent pioneering position in the field of technology.
The golden age was over
According to the report of Nikkei Asian Review China was a strong competitor to the United States in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), solar power and electric vehicles. A few years ago, specifically in certain areas of AI, such as face recognition, Chinese technology startups even work better than large American corporations. This shows China's world leader in some key technologies. However, currently Chinese technology businesses have fallen behind significantly compared to the American competitors in the field of AI.
The main reason is due to its great dependence on Chinese semiconductor chip supply, when the US tightened its high -tech exports to China, the technology companies in the country had many difficulties in product development. Although the Chinese government has made an effort to develop chip technology and launch products such as Huawei's 5G phones or self -design processors, these products are still considered outdated compared to Western technology. The distance of chip production technology between the US and China has increased from two generations to five generations in the past 4 years.
In terms of the scale of Chinese AI companies, it is also much smaller than the US, the leading company of China is only 33.7 billion US dollars, the revenue related to AI is US $ 91 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, much lower than the US $ 80 billion Open, the US $ 2 billion worth of AI revenue. This is very worrying because the disruption of AI technology requires billions of dollars in the US. If it is not possible to compete for the size of Chinese companies, it will gradually fall behind in the global AI race.
The training of AI models requiring huge investment capital is becoming a great challenge for Chinese technology corporations after a long time of being tightened by the government. Specifically, in 2018, the two largest technology companies in China, Alibaba and Tensen Holdings, had a total market capitalization value equal to about 62% of the total market capitalization of US technology giants, Microsoft and Apple. But now the values of Alibaba and Tenen are only about 9% of Microsoft and Apple.
Currently, the seven largest technology companies in the United States include Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon with a total market capitalization of up to 13.2 trillion US dollars, while seven leading Chinese technology companies are only a total value of more than 1000 billion US dollars much lower than US rivals. The growing difference in financial resources among Chinese and American Bigtech giants shows China's difficulties in competing with American companies, especially in the field that requires huge capital like AI development research. According to the report of the Nikkei Asian Review of the Chinese technology industry, which is less creative than before, due to fear of violating the government's tightening regulations.
Specifically, in 2018, a series of new technology trends have appeared in China such as bicycle sharing applications, social network integration and mobile payment, Tiktok short video applications that make the world pay attention. At that time, China was considered to be the place where the hottest technology trends on globe. However, the number of startups is priced on US $ 1 billion, also known as unicorns in China, is gradually decreasing, especially after the event of billionaire Jack Ms was handled for criticizing the Government by 2020.
In 2018, China had 208 more unicorns than 151 unicorns of the United States, but so far this number is only 171 equal to 1/4 compared to 658 US unicorns. Obviously, the more psychological the more wrong, the no wrong is not spreading in the Chinese startup world. The management of the Beijing Government not only limits the capital but also negatively affects the needs of the human resource market and the creative ability and the spirit of dare to try the wrong startups.
Six years ago, Chinese venture capitalists poured more money into the US but in 2023, the total source of venture capital in China was only 1/4 compared to the US. Some argue that the US embargo caused the capital to decline but Huawei's recovery showed that the main problem was still in the Chinese government's management policy, not the US.
Fear of punishment
The important feature of the technology sector is the spirit of daring to ask questions, dare to test and take risks. However, a series of moves to manage industries such as video games, e -commerce, education and online finance of the Chinese government have devastated this open spirit. The investigation of large companies on monopoly of nationally restructuring as the case of Alibaba Group has created an atmosphere of fear among Chinese technology.
According to Nikkei, today Chinese businessmen are more interested in avoiding the sanctions of the regulatory agency rather than creating a breakthrough product. Of course, all experts understand that Beijing needs to restore control over technology giants who are exceeding the limit. However, this will certainly adversely affect the competitiveness and creative innovation of the whole industry. Currently, the Chinese regulatory agencies are the decision -oriented technological orientation instead of the market according to Rodium Group, the Chinese state budget accounts for 60% of financial investment in science and technology.
However, the planning according to the subjective will of the administrative agency is easy to fail because the technology future and market trends are unpredictable. For example, no one thinks Microsoft will succeed when investing US $ 10 billion in Open, while Google previously the big man in this field even Open AI and Elon Musk did not predict the explosion of GPT chat. Finally, Nickey said that the free environment and open business spirit can nurture the sustainable development of the technology industry, not a rigid administrative control.
Jack Ma's lesson
When sharing at an economic club in the New York American Jack Ma once admitted that the period of being a tutor with a modest salary of US $ 12 a month, equivalent to more than VND 300,000 is the best time for his life. When he did not have much money, he knew how to use it effectively but once he became a billionaire, his responsibility to put on his shoulder also became much bigger. Jack Ma affirmed that when US $ 1 million in money was no longer your own but becoming the responsibility and thought that everyone had for you. Therefore, he needs to use that money to benefit society. This is not the first time Jack Ma shared the burden of becoming a billionaire.
At an event of Clinton global initiative in New York. In 2017, he also emphasized that the time when the teacher was really great. He admitted that it was fortunate to have US $ 1 million, but when that number increased to US $ 10 million, the problem would be completely different. After Alibaba went to the Jackma floor, she also shared with CNBC that the pressure on him was great because the whole world was paying attention to the company's stock price. Despite being happy with success, he still felt worried when people appreciate too much. The founder of Alibaba said that there was too much pressure I tried to keep myself happy, because if I was not happy, my shareholder and my customers would not be happy.
Indeed, becoming rich has made Jack Ma miserable, especially after controversial statements with Chinese officials. After being punished by the government, he almost disappeared from all public events, including on social networks, Joey Vice President of Executive Vice President Alibaba revealed to CNBC that he was hiding, I talked to him every day he spent time painting as a hobby. Mr. Chang expressed that Jack Ma was also a normal person after building such a strong corporation, Jack Ma certainly did great things for society. I think this is the time he focuses on what he really wants.
For example, his passion and volunteer, Jack Ma, who was spotted sitting at lunch alone with a diet of only a plate of shrimp noodles, a plate of garlic and a rather simple side dish compared to the living standard of the majority of medium -sized families who were a favorite dish of an employee who has been revealed since 1999. Although there is no more appearance in public Jack still receives the attention of the community.