China is (still) marching ahead

Standpoint: We're not studying China enough

With govt led PLI schemes and the global China + 1 phenomenon we're seeing the beginning of India developing a mass manufacturing ecosystem.

However, while the government and others are doing their best in this space, I feel the media isn't really serious about covering China.

Let's consider developments from the last month alone. From ground breaking AI to robotics to massive aircraft carriers - China is moving ahead fast.

• SenseTime, China's AI answer to OpenAI, saw its shares surge 30% after it released a AI model that was comparable to GPT-4.

• The country now boasts eight major AI tech companies with immense resources at their disposal. SenseTime, Megvii, CloudWalk, Yitu, Baichuan, Zhipu, Moonshot and MiniMax.

• The country has seen launch of over 200 Large Language Models (LLMs) in the last 2-3 years - India probably did a fraction of this number.

How about robotics? Shenzhen based Stardust Intelligence company's Astribot S1 was seen performing most of the tasks a Tesla Optimus robot is capable of.

• The robot was seen folding clothes, opening wine bottles, slicing vegetables, flipping bread on a pan and so on. It was clearly aiming at Tesla's Optimus which was shown doing exactly some of these things.

• Apart from Astribot we've also seen other similar products. Tiangong, a humanoid robot, was announced earlier this year.

• in industrial robots, over 50% of all the world's industrial robotic units were installed in China. And this number is growing fast.

Even in space and defence sectors, China has done things that should make us sit up and take note. Its largest aircraft carrier set sail recently. Its astronauts came back to earth after spending six months in space.

• Chinese media announced this week that three of their astronauts have just returned to earth in Shenzhou-17 spacecraft. They spent six months in the Chinese space station Tiangong at low earth orbit and also did two spacewalks.

• Most of us have been lulled into thinking the ISS as the only permanent human habitation in space. Turns out the Chinese have an entire space station at their disposal.

Meanwhile, in the waters - the Chinese navy began sea trials of the 70,000 tonne locally built aircraft carrier name Fujian.

• The Fujian features, amidst other features, electromagnetic catapults - a first for a non-US navy in the world

• Their shipbuilding industry is already the world's largest. The Chinese navy inducted 30 new ships last year alone - 15 of them were large warships.

• It already fields three aircraft carriers and is building another one. The program to acquire aircraft carriers for them began earnestly only as late as 2012.

Maybe all of this is too alarmist? Perhaps. But I came across a post on social media yesterday about how European leaders had been mocking Elon Musk's SpaceX in the company's early days.

• A European space agency executive on SpaceX in 2013: "SpaceX primarily seems to be selling a dream. $50M launch is a dream. Reusability is a dream. How do you respond to a dream?"

• Today in 2024: SpaceX dominates the satellite launch market, the European space agencies are hurting big time and have no way of countering SpaceX's dozens of re-launches of the same boosters.

• The European space agency Ariane's marketshare is only a small fraction of SpaceX

• Disruption and tech-led domination of markets is real. While India has made a good start, it's important to not lose sight of how far ahead our rivals are.