The first half of this year has been shaped by a global arms race around artificial intelligence. First sparked by OpenAI’s release of the humanlike chatbot ChatGPT late last year, the competition on generative AI innovation caught on across companies and across borders.

In recent weeks, China has become one of the key players in the AI arms race with several Chinese companies releasing ChatGPT contenders. Technology company Baidu launched Ernie Bot, an AI-powered chatbot, last month, while Alibaba unveiled Tongyi Qianwen in early April, among others.