In the last two years, the groundbreaking development of generative AI has made its mark on almost every sector of the economy. It can write computer code, create texts and images, and even act as your personal assistant.
Since US tech still dominates the global space, we tend to hear a lot about their latest developments. What we often don’t see or hear about is the contribution of its closest rival: China.
If you go back to the 5G race during the last decade, it was a clear turning point for China-US rivalry. While US and Europe dominated the setting of telecom standards, along came China and beat them both in the race for 5G.
A similar story has developed in generative AI in the last decade. The world has seen over 50,000 generative AI patents in the last 10 years. A whopping 38,000 of these were filed by China! The US stands at second but it only filed a total of 6,276 patents during this time.
That is a huge difference and one that will make a big difference down the road as generative AI technology goes mainstream.
Creating unknown problems
Where technologies solve problems, they can also create more, previously unknown, issues. One such issue is that of the effect of generative AI on workforce, productivity and as a result the broader economy, including inflation and unemployment.
We already know that generative AI can create texts, images, and code. This has affected journalists, graphic designers, software engineers, and multiple other professions. If people lose their jobs because they were replaced by generative AI, where do they go? How do they contribute to the society? How do they make money?
These are problems that many in China and the US will need to think about as the technology goes mainstream.
Chairman Federal Reserve Jerome Powell has said that its too early to tell.
There’s a sense of something big coming here. And it feels like what that will be, is it will eliminate some jobs, it will create some new jobs
He admits there’s not a lot the central bank can do. But one thing it cannot afford is to ignore the technology. For now, they’re looking from the sidelines. If the tech is as revolutionary as some think, the FED might eventually have to deal with it. So it makes sense that they keep track of it.
Chinese companies dominate
The patents filed by Chinese companies span various sectors. From autonomous driving to security and from publishing to public transportation, the technology seems to have touched every sector. Alibaba Group, ByteDance, Baidu, and Tencent are among the top patent filing companies in China.
International giants like Microsoft, IBM, Samsung, and Alphabet are also notable contributors. These companies tend to make a lot of noise when they launch new tech, but they’ve fallen behind their Chinese competitors by a big margin.
It was Microsoft’s backing of OpenAI that has made headlines around the world, mainly because everyone has now incorporated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into their workflows one way or the other.
While it seems ChatGPT may have taken over the world with its revolutionary tech, the reality will only be revealed once the full potential of generative AI comes to the fore.
Until then, western companies may well enjoy the limelight. But when things start to get real, the Chinese patents will come in handy. And that’s where they may land the final blow to Western tech.
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