Elon Musk praises China’s ‘very strong’ A.I. credentials

Elon Musk believes China is in a powerful place in terms of the event of synthetic intelligence and that the nation shall be “great at anything it puts its mind to.”  

In remarks delivered by video on Thursday to the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which is being held in Shanghai, the Tesla CEO didn’t maintain again when it got here to praising sure features of the world’s second-largest economic system.

“I think there’s a tremendous number of very smart, very talented people in China,” he mentioned. “I’ve always been a tremendous admirer of the sheer amount of talent and drive that exists in China.”

“So I think, really, China’s going to be great at anything it puts its mind to,” Musk added.

“So that includes, you know, many different sectors, sectors of the economy but also artificial intelligence. So, I think China will have very strong AI capability — [that] is my prediction.”

Musk has important business pursuits in China. Tesla sells its electrical vehicles there and runs a significant manufacturing facility in Shanghai. In May, he met with China’s Foreign Minister, Qin Gang.

In the previous, he has praised Chinese automakers, describing them as “most competitive in the world.” In 2020 he mentioned “China rocks, in my opinion.”

Musk’s most up-to-date feedback come in opposition to a backdrop of tensions between the U.S. and China over expertise.

In 2022, Washington enacted sweeping export restrictions on key chips and semiconductor gear to China. The transfer might hobble’s Beijing’s makes an attempt to spice up its home trade in a essential expertise. But trade analysts imagine that Chinese chip makers will nonetheless develop their very own superior semiconductors regardless of Washington’s makes an attempt to chop the nation off.

Interest in AI and its doubtlessly transformative results on society has heightened in current instances. The previous yr has seen chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT garner big quantities of publicity, whereas discussions about whether or not AI poses a wider menace to humanity have additionally taken place.

—CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report