This week, some Observers of the auto industry felt a creeping feeling of Déjà Vu. Outside anywhere, A Sugar The firm made international headlines by making Western companies the best in the technology, which they invented.
No, it was not byd, 20 -year -old vehicle manufacturer Suddenly global recognized In recent years when it started exporting Low -priced electric vehicle All over the world. (Byd built more electric vehicles than Tesla in 2024.) This week was about discussion DeepsekA Chinese Startup Shocking technology It seems when it released a new open-source artificial intelligence model A fraction of funding American contestants have hoisted themselves to build. Deepsek's success slid US tech stock earlier this week, and investors scramble to re -prepare their bets.
In some ways, experts say, the success of the startup follows the playbook of the auto industry. And the lesson was the same: Chinese companies can still make it better and cheap. “There is a low of Chinese innovation and simplicity,” says Ilaria Majoko, a senior partner who researches Chinese policy in a non -profit organization, ” Strategic and international study centers“There is still resources when the best technology cannot reach.”
Susan Helper, an economist at the case Western Reserve University, says that many major global economic success stories have been eliminated from a similar national strategy, which study global supply chains and manufacturing and work on EV policy in Biden administration We do. Cars, solar panels, batteries, steel: “It basically, decide on an industry that is important, and puts a lot of money for it for a long time,” she says. (Compare that the approach to cars with the US, “Where we change our mind on electric vehicles every few years.”
In the case of cars, the Chinese government subsidized electric vehicles for almost two decades, electric vehicles gave tax breaks to customers, and made policies for which the whole country is in EV direction to reduce emissions and go to electric One should be pushed. , Chinese AI investment is very high recently, but is growing large. In the last decade, Chinese government Put more than $ 200 billion In firms related to AI, Stanford researchers are estimated. This month, it announced a new $ 8.2 billion AI Investment Fund.
Additionally, Helper says, the sugar industry benefits from the blurred borders between the government, private firms and the army.
The result is an AI ecosystem that is definitely not the auto one, but it has some echoes. The history of the Chinese auto industry demonstrates the sophisticated research network and abilities of firms to build on the success of its predecessors, says Postdockoril researcher Kail Chan of Princeton University, Kail Chan. Write about Chinese industrial and climate policy. Gali's success witness, which began as a refrigerator parts company in 1997 in 1997 in the late 1980s. For its first four years, it was not really a license to work in China; Today, it produces 3.3 million vehicles and sells internationally, in addition to being the owner of the major stakes in Volvo, Polstar and Eston Martin. Geely and other automekars that emerged in the same time limit- Chira, Byd, Great Wall Motor- have now produced a new wave of manufacturers. Today, around 100 domestic brands are selling in China.