What a visit to China’s AI labs reveals about the battle for global soft power

A visit to a Shanghai-based artificial intelligence research institute reveals China's strategic use of AI for global soft power, as depicted in an ink-wash map showing chipmakers like Huawei as mountains and algorithms as mountain ranges, with ethics and privacy as uncharted islands. The map underscores the competition to dictate AI rules and ethics, with the institute staff emphasizing it is art, not an official statement.

What a visit to China’s AI labs reveals about the battle for global soft power The ultimate prize in AI is not just owning the technology, but having the power to dictate rules, frame ethics and command global influence Wency Chen /author/wency-chen in Shanghai Inside the exhibition hall of a Shanghai-based artificial intelligence research institute, an ink-wash map covered an entire wall, immediately drawing your attention. It was a cartography of AI: chipmakers were rendered as mountains on islands and algorithms as jagged mountain ranges, while questions of privacy, fairness and machine consciousness drifted at the edges like uncharted islands. Foreign guests and I leaned in, tracing the brushstrokes. “Why is Huawei’s chip placed right at the estuary?” someone asked. “And why are AI ethics drawn as twin peaks?” A staffer reminded us, more than once, that it was art – not an official statement of facts.