By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) – China is leading the adoption of generative AI, a new study shows, the latest sign that the country is making progress in the technology that gained global attention after U.S.-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in late 2022.
In a survey of 1,600 decision makers in industries around the world by US AI and analytics software company SAS and Coleman Parkes Research, 83% of Chinese respondents said they were using generative AI, the technology underpinning ChatGPT.
That was higher than the 16 other countries and regions in the survey, including the United States, where 65% of respondents said they had adopted GenAI.
The global average was 54%.
The sectors surveyed include banking, insurance, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail and energy.
The results underscore China’s rapid progress in generative AI, which accelerated after Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, prompting dozens of Chinese companies to launch their own versions.
Last week, a report from the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization found that China led the GenAI patent race, with more than 38,000 applications filed between 2014 and 2023, compared to 6,276 filed by the United States in the same period.
While many leading global generative AI service providers, including OpenAI, are facing restrictions in China, the country has developed a robust domestic industry, with offerings from tech giants like ByteDance to startups like Zhipu.
The adoption of generative AI by enterprises in China is expected to accelerate as a price war is likely to further reduce the cost of major language model services for enterprises.
The SAS report also notes that China is leading the world in continuous automated monitoring (CAM), which it describes as “a controversial but widespread use case for generative AI tools.”
This technology can collect and analyze vast amounts of data about users’ activities, behavior and communications, which can lead to privacy breaches as they are unaware of the extent of the data being collected or how it is being used , said Udo Sglavo, vice president of applied AI and modeling at SAS.
“The algorithms and processes used in CAM are often proprietary and not transparent,” Sglavo added.
“This can make it difficult to hold the entities that use CAM accountable for misuse or errors.”
He added: “China’s progress in CAM contributes to its broader strategy to become a global leader in artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies.”
