Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping (born 1953) has led China since 2012, and under him AI became a named pillar of national strategy earlier than in any other major power: the 2017 New Generation AI Development Plan set the goal of making China the world’s primary AI innovation center by 2030. The chatbot era has only intensified the push — DeepSeek’s low-cost breakthrough in early 2025 was celebrated in Beijing as proof that U.S. chip embargoes cannot fence China out.

AI Plus and the whole-nation system

At an April 2025 Politburo study session, Xi called for self-reliance in AI and for the technology’s development to be “healthy and orderly,” acknowledging it brings “risks and challenges not seen before.” In August 2025 the State Council issued his signature “Artificial Intelligence Plus” initiative, a blueprint to diffuse AI through manufacturing, science, governance, and daily life — targeting adoption rates above 70% by 2027 and 90% by 2030. Unlike Washington’s race rhetoric, the framing is industrial: AI as the electricity of the smart economy.

Xi pairs domestic acceleration with governance diplomacy. At the 2025 World AI Conference in Shanghai, China proposed a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization to write global rules, and Xi has repeatedly cast AI as a public good whose benefits should reach the Global South — a direct counter to U.S. export controls. Critics note the same technology underpins China’s surveillance state and censorship regime, and that models there must align with state ideology; the openness on offer is infrastructural, not political.