# Chinese researchers chart 5-stage path toward ‘last AI built by humans’ > Source: > Published: 2026-09-14 13:30:06+00:00 Advertisement # Chinese researchers chart 5-stage path toward ‘last AI built by humans’ Automating AI research has emerged as a battleground, though US firms have an early lead due to superior access to compute resources 2-MIN READ2-MIN Listen [Minxiao Chang](/author/minxiao-chang)in Shenzhen Researchers from China’s leading universities and tech giants are setting their sights on a crucial new front in the AI race with the US: developing systems capable of building better versions of themselves without human intervention. In a joint paper published on Thursday, researchers from ByteDance, Tsinghua University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, among others, outlined a five-stage road map for [recursive self-improvement (RSI).](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3367237/us-and-china-are-racing-build-self-improving-ai-heres-whats-stake?module=inline&pgtype=article) The study, titled “The Last AI Built by Humans: Toward Genuine Recursive Self-Improvement”, highlights a growing industry focus on automating the labour-intensive life cycle of training, evaluating, and fine-tuning AI models. Select Voice Select Speed 1x AI-generated voice