CHINA: Key Local News Highlights - First CNY1tn AI StartUp

The manufacturing sector will maintain steady growth, supported by the seasonal infrastructure boom and overseas demand for Chinese equipment, Securities Daily reported after the official PMI fell by 0.3 percentage points in May from April, mainly driven by a moderate decline in external demand, as slower exports from the consumer goods sector dragged down the business climate for small and medium-sized enterprises. June is the peak season for kicking off major projects, while the rapid AI development continues to drive the high-tech manufacturing sector, said Wen Tao, analyst at China Logistics Information Center.

Local governments are launching a new round of reforms to state-owned enterprises, with strategic restructuring and the development of emerging industries becoming the two main focuses, Shanghai Securities News reported. About 20 cities held special meetings on SOE reform in May, the newspaper calculated. Next-generation information technology, new energy, new materials, aerospace, quantum information, hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion, as well as brain-computer interfaces will be the key areas, said Zhou Lisha, a researcher at the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Association.

China hopes the U.S. will work together to make artificial intelligence a new frontier for Sino-U.S. cooperation by strengthening dialogue, managing competition, and cooperating, said the People’s Daily in a commentary. Both countries have different focuses in various aspects of AI technology research and development, application, and regulation, which are somewhat complementary. Currently, there are still some practical obstacles to AI cooperation between the two countries, as some U.S. officials have restricted investment, chip export, and cloud computing service, artificially creating barriers to cooperation, the newspaper added.