It can seem like artificial intelligence is suddenly everywhere in China.
From banking to shopping and maps to ride-hailing, almost all major Chinese mobile apps now offer ai chatbots.
Universities are creating courses in ai.
To shop for a toilet seat is to learn of ai-enhanced options that monitor urine quality.
To order yoghurt from an upscale chain involves scanning your face
so that its ai model can tailor its fermented product to your needs.
Of course, ai is not actually everywhere.
But this being China, a country that loves presenting positive data,
the government will tell you exactly how far it has got:
by 2025, 42.8% of the country had "adopted" generative ai,
double a year earlier.
At this rate China is on track to hit its target
of a 90% ai "penetration rate" by 2030.
Never mind the precise meanings of adoption or penetration.
The questionable statistic itself is a small emblem of China's ai story:
the state's hands-on role in pushing the technology.
Ever since China's "DeepSeek moment" last year,
when an unknown startup shocked the world by exhibiting advanced capabilities
at a fraction of the cost of Western models,
attention has focused on the race to build the best ai models.