Shanghai, July 30, 2025 – In a decisive move to counter persistent U.S. technology restrictions, China’s artificial intelligence leaders unveiled two pivotal industry alliances during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. The initiatives aim to tightly integrate the nation’s semiconductor capabilities with its booming AI software sector, creating a self-reliant "chip-to-model" pipeline.
The first alliance, dubbed the "Chip+ AI Collaborative Network," brings together chipmakers like SMIC, Huawei’s HiSilicon, and Cambricon with cloud giants Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Their mandate: accelerate the design, manufacturing, and deployment of domestic AI accelerators and high-bandwidth memory solutions tailored for large language model training. "This is about optimizing the entire silicon stack for AI workloads from scratch," declared Hu Houkun, Rotating Chairman of Huawei, during the launch keynote.
Parallelly, the "Open Model Ecosystem Alliance" pools resources from AI frontrunners including SenseTime, Baidu, iFlyTek, and Tsinghua University’s AI Institute. Focused on software, the group will establish shared frameworks for developing, validating, and scaling large-scale AI models exclusively using Chinese hardware. A key pillar involves creating standardized benchmarks to measure performance across domestic chips – a critical gap hampering adoption until now.
Industry analysts see the alliances as a direct response to tightened U.S. export controls, which since 2023 have barred Chinese firms from accessing advanced AI chips from NVIDIA, AMD, and others.
Foreign media have noted the strategic shift:
Chinese AI firms form alliances to build domestic ecosystem amid US curbs
(Reuters, July 28, 2025)
"China isn’t just playing catch-up; it’s architecting an entirely parallel ecosystem," commented Dr. Li Fei, a Shanghai-based AI researcher. "The alliances formalize what was already happening in silos – coordinated R&D from silicon to algorithms."
Tang Xiao’ou, founder of SenseTime, emphasized resilience: "By unifying our hardware and software roadmaps, we turn constraints into catalysts for innovation." The push aligns with Beijing’s "Digital China" blueprint, which prioritizes technological sovereignty amid escalating tech decoupling.
Early collaborations are already bearing fruit. Huawei previewed its upcoming "Ascend 910C" AI chip – optimized for 10 trillion-parameter models – while Baidu demonstrated ERNIE 5.0 running at near-peak efficiency on entirely domestic hardware.
As global AI fragmentation intensifies, China’s coordinated counterstroke at WAIC signals a new chapter: one where silicon autonomy fuels algorithmic ambition.
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