Grace Shao on the Fierce Battle Being Waged Between China’s AI Leaders

Grace Shao runs the popular AI Proem newsletter on Substack and has quickly become a sought-after analyst of China’s AI ecosystem. In this episode, she dives into what makes China’s AI players different from those in the west, how regulation is diverging between the two, and the breakthroughs on the horizon.

From DeepSeek’s open-source moment to Alibaba’s Qwen and ByteDance’s Doubao, the field is moving fast — and the divide between Chinese and western AI is no longer just about hardware constraints. Grace breaks down the players, the policies, and the patterns to watch as the race accelerates.