China can narrow its technological gap with the US driven by growing risk-taking and innovation, though the lack of advanced chipmaking tools is hobbling the sector, reports Reuters. This is based on comments from the country’s leading artificial intelligence researchers.
Yao Shunyu, a former senior researcher at ChatGPT maker OpenAI who was named technology giant Tencent’s AI scientist in December, said there was a high likelihood of a Chinese firm becoming the world’s leading AI company in the next three to five years but said the lack of advanced chipmaking machines was the main technical hurdle. “Currently, we have a significant advantage in electricity and infrastructure. The main bottlenecks are production capacity, including lithography machines, and the software ecosystem,” Yao said at an AI conference in Beijing.
China has completed a working prototype of an extreme-ultraviolet lithography machine potentially capable of producing cutting-edge semiconductor chips that rival the West’s, Reuters reported last month. However, the machine has not yet produced working chips and may not do so until 2030, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.