王月眉2026年9月24日 Karolis StrautniekasIn a stretch of former farmland now transformed into a gleaming technology park, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, watched two robotic hands slowly thread a needle.在一座由农田改建的闪亮科技园区，中国国家主席习近平观看了两只机械手缓慢穿针引线的过程。What he was seeing, he declared, would help China seize its future.他宣布，他所看到的这一切将帮助中国抓住未来。It is a future in which artificial intelligence permeates China’s factories, hospitals and classrooms, reinvigorating the economy through advanced robotics and high-end manufacturing. It is a future in which China, not the United States, dominates A.I. development, turning the technology into what Mr. Xi has called a “lead goose” to fly the country into its next economic revolution.在这个未来中，人工智能将渗透至中国的工厂、医院和教室，通过先进机器人和高端制造重振经济。在这个未来中，将由中国而非美国主导人工智能的发展，把这项技术转化为习近平所称的“头雁”，引领国家飞向下一场经济革命。To realize that vision, the Chinese government is mobilizing the full weight of the state.为了实现这一愿景，中国政府正在动用倾国之力。At the park that Mr. Xi visited, on the outskirts of Beijing in February, hundreds of companies have set up offices to develop cutting-edge chips and A.I. models. The city government is giving them tens of millions of dollars in free computing power. An exhibition hall shows off their creations, including chips designed to power nuclear missiles and brain implants that could help paralyzed patients speak.在今年2月习近平访问的这个位于北京郊区的园区内，已有数百家企业设立办公点，研发尖端芯片和人工智能模型。市政府正向他们提供价值数千万美元的免费算力。一座展厅展示着这些企业的研发成果，其中包括用于驱动核导弹的芯片，以及能帮助瘫痪患者恢复语言能力的脑机接口。Mr. Xi, during his visit, said that China’s strength lies in its ability to zero in on a direction and follow through.习近平在考察期间表示，中国的优势在于能够锚定一个方向并贯彻到底。“We must give full play to our nation’s advantage of concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks,” he told an assembled group of entrepreneurs, researchers and officials.我们要“充分发挥我们国家集中力量办大事的优势”，他向在场的一群企业家、科研人员和官员表示。China’s A.I. campaign is backed by enormous sums of government money. Economists estimate that state-led funds put more than $184 billion into A.I. firms between 2000 and 2023, and last year, the government and state-owned banks pledged hundreds of billions more. Private A.I. investment in China is far lower than in the United States, where private sources poured $285 billion into the technology in 2025 alone.中国的人工智能攻势得到了巨额政府资金的支持。据经济学家估计，在2000年至2023年间，国家主导的基金向人工智能企业投入了超过1840亿美元，去年政府和国有银行又承诺提供数千亿美元。中国在人工智能领域的私人投资远低于美国，仅在2025年，美国的民间资本便向该技术倾注了2850亿美元。Beijing’s approach to A.I. is distinct from the prevailing one in the United States in other ways, too.北京对待人工智能的策略在其他方面也与美国的普遍做法截然不同。Many in Washington and Silicon Valley see A.I. development as a race toward artificial general intelligence, a still-theoretical form of A.I. that could think and learn as well as — or better than — humans.华盛顿和硅谷的许多人将人工智能的发展视为一场迈向通用人工智能(AGI)的竞赛，这是一种仍处于理论阶段的人工智能形式，旨在让人工智能做到像人类一样——甚至超越人类。Chinese officials have hardly mentioned A.G.I., focusing on more immediate goals.而中国官员几乎未曾提及通用人工智能，他们更关注立竿见影的目标。China’s population is rapidly shrinking and getting older, creating an urgent need for intelligent robots to replace retiring workers. Poor rural residents could seek medical care from digital avatars of top urban doctors. The authorities could more easily know where Chinese citizens are, what they say and perhaps even how they feel.中国人口正在迅速萎缩并走向老龄化，这催生了用智能机器人替代退休劳动力的迫切需求。贫困地区的农村居民可以向顶尖城市医生的数字替身寻求医疗服务。相关部门也能借此更轻易地掌握中国公民的行踪、言论，甚至可能感知他们的情绪。The government has said that A.I.-powered tools and agents should permeate 90 percent of Chinese society by 2030, though it has not explained how that would be measured.政府曾表示，到2030年，人工智能驱动的工具和智能体应覆盖90%的中国社会，不过并未解释将如何衡量这一目标。Mr. Xi has also endorsed Chinese companies’ use of open-source models, which have helped them win users globally when leading American companies have released closed systems.习近平还对中国企业使用开源模型表示认可。当领先的美国企业相继发布封闭系统时，开源策略已帮助中国企业赢得了全球用户。China has embraced A.I. despite the potential risks it poses to the Communist Party’s legitimacy and tight grip on society.尽管人工智能对共产党的合法性及其对社会的严密掌控构成了潜在风险，但中国依然拥抱了这项技术。The technology is already displacing taxi drivers, actors and office workers, heightening worries about joblessness and potential unrest.该技术已经在取代出租车司机、演员和办公室白领，加剧了人们对失业和潜在社会动荡的担忧。Chatbots could threaten the party’s controls on information, while advanced foreign models like Claude Mythos could make it easier for China’s enemies to launch complex hacking attacks on its critical infrastructure — a threat the country’s top spy chief recently acknowledged.聊天机器人可能会威胁到中共对信息的管控，而像Claude Mythos这样先进的外国模型可能会使中国的敌对势力更容易对其关键基础设施发动复杂的黑客攻击——中国国家安全部高级官员近期也承认了这一威胁。Mr. Xi is betting that China can control those dangers.习近平押注中国能够控制住这些危险。Regulators have imposed strict rules on what chatbots can say and banned A.I. companion bots for children. Chinese courts have warned companies not to blindly replace workers with technology. The authorities have also barred some leading A.I. entrepreneurs from leaving China.监管机构已对聊天机器人的发言内容施加了严格限制，并禁止了面向儿童的人工智能陪伴机器人。中国法院已警告企业不要盲目用技术取代工人。相关部门还限制了一些顶尖的人工智能企业家出境。But Beijing’s confidence in its controls, and its determination to catch up with the United States, also mean it is skeptical of global calls to slow the pace of A.I. development.但北京对其掌控力的信心以及赶超美国的决心也意味着其对全球要求放缓人工智能发展步伐的呼吁持怀疑态度。In Beijing’s view, China is already fighting from behind. Washington has limited China’s access to the most advanced chips, so China lacks the computing power that is needed to train cutting-edge A.I. Agreeing to slow down now, in this view, would only cement America’s lead.在北京看来，中国本就处在落后追赶的位置。华盛顿限制了中国获取最先进芯片的渠道，导致中国缺乏训练尖端人工智能所需的算力。基于这种观点，如果现在同意放慢脚步，只会巩固美国的领先地位。The 2014 Speech That Started It All开启一切的2014年讲话In Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, China’s top scientists gathered for a speech by Mr. Xi. It was June 2014, the first time that Mr. Xi addressed China’s Academies of Engineering and Sciences as the country’s leader.在北京人民大会堂，中国顶尖科学家齐聚一堂，聆听习近平的讲话。那是2014年6月，习近平首次以国家领导人身份在两院院士大会上讲话。The attendees had submitted reports beforehand, and Mr. Xi said he had read them closely. He said he was particularly intrigued by one report predicting that A.I.-powered robots would soon transform the global economy. Such machines, unlike traditional robots that repeat specific preprogrammed tasks, can use A.I. to learn from and adapt to their surroundings. China would be the biggest market, the report said.与会者事先提交了报告，习近平表示他已仔细阅读。他说自己对一份预测人工智能驱动的机器人将很快改变全球经济的报告特别感兴趣。与重复预设任务的传统机器人不同，这类机器能利用人工智能从周围环境中学习并适应。报告指出，中国将成为其最大的市场。That wasn’t enough, Mr. Xi said. China should be not just the biggest buyer, but also the top maker.习近平表示，这还不够。中国不仅应成为最大的买家，还应成为顶尖的制造者。“Reading this, I wondered,” he added, “can our technology and manufacturing capabilities keep up with the competition?”“看到这里，我就在想，”他说，“我们的技术和制造能力能不能应对这场竞争？”That speech set off a frenzy that still shapes China’s A.I. policy today.那次讲话掀起的一股热潮至今仍在塑造着中国的人工智能政策。Immediately afterward, Pan Yunhe, the Chinese Academy of Engineering’s vice president and a respected A.I. researcher, organized a team to design a long-term strategy for the country, according to Gong Ke, a professor in Tianjin who leads an A.I. research institute under the academy.据在天津负责管理该院下属一所人工智能研究院的龚克教授透露，会后不久，时任中国工程院副院长、备受尊敬的人工智能专家潘云鹤便组织团队，开始为国家设计一项长期战略。China was well positioned to take the lead in A.I., Professor Pan wrote in a research paper shortly afterward, because its huge population ensured that there was both a great supply of data to train models, and great demand for intelligent products. He also wrote that China urgently needed A.I. to address problems that the country’s rapid modernization had created; smart manufacturing and A.I.-assisted education, for example, could help address issues such as pollution and inequality. (Professor Pan declined an interview request.)潘云鹤在不久后发表的一篇研究论文中写道，中国非常有望在人工智能领域取得领先地位，因为其庞大的人口不仅能为训练模型提供海量数据，也为智能产品创造了巨大需求。他还写道，中国迫切需要人工智能来解决快速现代化带来的问题；例如，智能制造和人工智能辅助教育能够帮助应对污染和不平等等挑战。（潘云鹤拒绝了采访请求。）In 2017, China issued its first national A.I. plan, which, in parts, used language virtually identical to Professor Pan’s paper. It said that China should become a world leader in the technology by 2030.2017年，中国发布了首个国家级人工智能发展规划，其中部分表述与潘云鹤的论文几乎如出一辙。规划提出，中国应在2030年成为该技术的世界领导者。In the years after the plan was released, China’s A.I. sector expanded rapidly. State and private investors pumped in money. The number of A.I. patents by China soon blew past that of the United States.在该规划发布后的几年里，中国的人工智能产业迅速扩张。国家和私人投资者注入了大量资金。中国的人工智能专利数量很快便超越了美国。From the start, Beijing saw A.I. as a force, like the internet, that could shore up the party’s power. It could help maintain public satisfaction by boosting economic growth. It could also head off potential unrest by helping the party monitor China’s people.从一开始，北京就将人工智能视作一种类似于互联网、能够巩固党执政地位的力量。它可以通过推动经济增长来帮助维持民众的满意度。它还能通过协助官方实施监控，防范潜在的社会动荡。Manufacturers pushed A.I. into factories and warehouses. Surveillance companies became global leaders in facial and voice recognition. At one point in 2018, SenseTime, a Beijing-based company that has helped the government police China’s Uyghur minority, was the world’s most valuable A.I. start-up.制造商将人工智能引入工厂和仓库。监控企业成为了面部和语音识别领域的全球领军者。2018年，曾协助政府对少数民族维吾尔人进行警务监控的北京企业商汤科技一度成为全球估值最高的人工智能初创公司。But Chinese researchers were generally not focused on large language models, as American researchers were. When ChatGPT appeared in 2022, China reeled. Commentators who had boasted of China’s lead in A.I. asked why the breakthrough had not come from their country.但当时中国研究人员普遍没有像美国同行那样专注于大型语言模型。当ChatGPT于2022年问世时，中国深受震动。曾经夸耀中国在人工智能领域处于领先地位的评论员不禁发问：为什么这一突破没有诞生在自己的国家？Then, last year, came DeepSeek. The previously unknown Chinese start-up stunned the world by showing that Chinese firms could compete with Silicon Valley on large language models, too. In February 2025, a few weeks after DeepSeek released its model, Mr. Xi summoned a group of Chinese tech executives — including DeepSeek’s founder — to a meeting.随后，深度求索(DeepSeek)在去年横空出世。这家此前默默无闻的中国初创公司向世界证明了中国企业在大型语言模型上同样能与硅谷一较高下，此举震惊了全球。2025年2月，即DeepSeek发布其模型几周后，习近平召集了一群中国科技企业高管举行座谈会，其中就包括DeepSeek的创始人。“It is the right time for private enterprises and entrepreneurs to fully demonstrate their abilities,” he said. Those gathered must “unify our thinking” and “serve the country.”“广大民营企业和民营企业家大显身手正当其时，”他表示。与会者必须“统一思想”，并“胸怀报国志”。A Recipe for Dominance占据主导地位的秘诀Beijing is not just tapping its biggest tech tycoons for that mission. State support is supercharging individual ambitions across the country, as Hobo Liang, a 42-year-old entrepreneur in the tech hub of Shenzhen, has seen firsthand.为了实现这一使命，北京不仅在吸纳最顶尖的科技巨头。国家的支持也正在为全国各地个人的雄心壮志提供强大动力，在科技重镇深圳，42岁的创业者梁哲对此深有体会。The son of mathematics professors in northern China, Mr. Liang was drawn to machines from an early age. In elementary school, he built homemade radios from spare parts. At university in the mid-2000s, he studied electrical engineering and decided to start a robotics company.作为两位在北方任教的数学教授的儿子，梁哲从小就对机械着迷。小学时，他用废旧零件自制收音机。在2000年代中期的大学时代，他主修电气工程，并下定决心创办一家机器人公司。People around him were doubtful. One potential investor asked Mr. Liang why China needed robots when it had so many people. His parents urged him to apply for stable jobs at state-owned companies. China’s high-tech sector was in its infancy, and many of Mr. Liang’s heroes were in the United States: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. He even idolized a fictional entrepreneur — Tony Stark, of Marvel’s Iron Man movies.身边的人对此表示怀疑。一位潜在投资者问他，既然中国人口众多，为什么还需要机器人。父母敦促他找一份国企的稳定工作。当时中国的高科技产业尚处在起步阶段，梁哲心目中的英雄大多在美国：史蒂夫·乔布斯、埃隆·马斯克。他甚至崇拜一位虚构的企业家——漫威电影《钢铁侠》中的托尼·斯塔克。Today, Mr. Liang still keeps an Iron Man figurine on his desk. But that early skepticism feels far away. His start-up, Xeno Dynamics, which makes robotic exoskeletons for people with mobility issues, recently moved into a new government-built industrial park, next door to China’s leading drone maker.如今，他的办公桌上依然摆放着一个钢铁侠手办。但当年哪些怀疑的声音已经感觉十分遥远。他创办的奇诺动力(Xeno Dynamics)专门为行动不便者制造外骨骼机器人，最近已搬进一个由政府新建的产业园，与中国首屈一指的无人机制造商比邻而居。Xeno has been recognized as a national high-tech enterprise, meaning its tax rate is reduced from 25 percent to 15 percent. It has received over $1.4 million in government research funds, as well as multiple rounds of venture capital funding.奇诺动力已被认定为国家高新技术企业，这意味着其企业所得税率由25%降至15%。该公司已获得逾1000万元的政府研发资金，以及多轮风险投资。2025年，奇诺动力联合创始人兼董事长梁哲在中国深圳的办公室里。他的公司为行动不便的人制造机器人外骨骼。“We’re beneficiaries of the entire direction — whether it’s about robots, or A.I.,” Mr. Liang said in an interview in his office. “You have to follow the direction of major policies.”“这个方向正好我们是个受益者，不管从机器人来讲，AI也好，还是从现在讲的银发经济，我们都是受益者，”梁哲在其办公室接受采访时说。“所以这个就是跟着这个大的政策方向走，一定是这样。”In many ways, China’s playbook for A.I. mirrors the one it used to dominate electric vehicles and solar panels: subsidies, tax breaks and research money.在许多方面，中国发展人工智能的策略与其在电动汽车和太阳能电池板领域占据主导地位的策略如出一辙：补贴、税收减免和研发资金。A district in Shanghai offered up to $29 million to any A.I. company that achieved a major “breakthrough.” A university hub in Beijing said it had spent about $580 million on A.I. last year, funding data annotation centers, labs and housing for researchers.上海的一个区政府提出，将向任何取得重大“突破”的人工智能企业提供最高达2亿元的奖励。北京一处大学城表示去年在人工智能领域投入了约40亿元，用于资助数据标注中心、实验室以及为研究人员提供住房。In Shenzhen, officials spent more than $6 billion on the industrial park where Xeno’s offices are located. The district also promised to help robotics companies find potential customers.在深圳，官方耗资逾60亿美元建设了奇诺动力所在的产业园。区政府还承诺协助机器人企业寻找潜在客户。The central government, for its part, has been spending heavily on physical infrastructure. Beijing’s newest five-year plan calls for building ultra-large computing clusters and ensuring electricity to power the A.I. boom. Officials are also setting up a national exchange to trade data to train A.I. models.而中央政府一直在实体基础设施上投入巨资。北京最新的五年规划要求建设超大型计算集群，并确保电力供应以支撑人工智能热潮。官员们还正在筹建一个全国交易所，用于买卖训练人工智能模型所需的数据。The Limits of State Planning国家规划的局限性But it may be harder for Beijing to engineer mastery in A.I. than in electric vehicles or solar panels.然而，北京若想在人工智能领域取得像在电动汽车或太阳能电池板那样的掌控力，可能难度更大。In those sectors, the technology was fairly developed, and the state’s role was giving companies the financial support to edge out foreign competitors, said Cole McFaul, a researcher at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University.乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心研究员科尔·麦克福尔表示，在这些行业，技术已经相对成熟，国家的角色在于给予企业资金支持以挤走外国竞争对手。With A.I., leadership will hinge on technological breakthroughs. Subsidies can do only so much.但对于人工智能而言，能否占据领导地位将取决于技术突破。补贴的作用终究有限。One obstacle is a shortage of specialized talent. Another is the lack of access to the most powerful chips. Indeed, DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, has said that the company needs high-end chips, not more money.障碍之一是专业人才匮乏。其二则是无法获取最强大的芯片。事实上，DeepSeek创始人梁文锋曾表示，公司需要的是高端芯片，而不是更多的资金。The government is trying to close those gaps. It has poured more than $150 billion into a decadelong effort to develop domestic cutting-edge chips, though that has not yet yielded major successes. It is also working to train more scientific talent.中国政府正努力弥补这些差距。政府已投入逾1500亿美元，开展了一项为期十年的自主尖端芯片研发计划，尽管目前尚未取得重大成功。政府也正努力培养更多科研人才。Still, “those are long-term strategies, when the challenges right now are much more pressing,” Mr. McFaul said.“这些终归是长期战略，而眼下的挑战要紧迫得多，”麦克福尔说。Officials have acknowledged the need to give the private sector more room. Private companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba, not state-owned giants, have driven China’s breakthroughs.官员们已经意识到有必要给予私营部门更多空间。推动中国取得突破的是像DeepSeek和阿里巴巴这样的民营企业，而非国有巨头。 Karolis StrautniekasInstead of micromanaging research, officials have focused on stimulating demand for A.I. Local governments have rushed to embed A.I. in hospitals, schools and traffic systems. Last year, Zhejiang Province organized mass study sessions about A.I., with more than 220,000 party officials watching a live-streamed lecture by a Tsinghua University scholar.官员们没有对研发进行微观干预，而是将重点放在刺激人工智能的需求上。地方政府纷纷将人工智能融入医院、学校和交通系统中。去年，浙江省组织了关于人工智能的群众性学习活动，逾22万名党员干部观看了由一位清华大学学者主讲的直播课程。The authorities have even rolled back some of their most burdensome rules.当局甚至撤销了一些最为繁琐的规定。Soon after ChatGPT’s release, the party had proposed strict regulations on chatbots and other generative A.I., requiring platforms to guarantee that A.I.-generated output was “true and accurate.” After companies argued that would be impossible, that requirement disappeared from the final rules.就在ChatGPT发布后不久，中共曾提出对聊天机器人和其他生成式人工智能实施严格监管，要求平台保证人工智能生成的内容“真实准确”。在企业提出这根本无法实现之后，最终出台的管理办法中已经看不到该要求。Li Zhiqi, a policy adviser to the Beijing city government, said he helped channel feedback from companies to officials, and had proposed suggestions such as faster deployment of self-driving cars. “The government isn’t just making rules behind closed doors,” he said.北京市政府政策顾问李志起表示，他协助将企业的反馈意见传达给官员，并提出了加快自动驾驶汽车部署等建议。“政府也不会是这种一味的闭门造车，”他说。The Race to the Top巅峰之战For now, the approach seems to be working. At the end of 2025, China had more than 6,000 A.I. companies, and its core A.I. industry was worth $171 billion, according to official statistics. Chinese models now consistently outnumber American ones on a list of the most popular A.I. systems worldwide, according to OpenRouter, a closely watched leaderboard of A.I. models. Even Western tech companies like Airbnb have embraced them.就目前而言，这种方法似乎奏效了。据官方统计，截至2025年底，中国拥有超过6000家人工智能企业，核心人工智能产业规模达1710亿美元。备受关注的人工智能模型排行榜OpenRouter显示，在全球最受欢迎的人工智能系统榜单上，中国模型的数量目前始终力压美国模型。甚至连Airbnb等西方科技公司也拥抱了这些中国模型。Two Chinese companies recently introduced models that are nearly as powerful as the leading American model, Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, and cost much less to use.两家中国企业近期发布了与领先的美国模型——Anthropic的Claude Fable 5性能几乎相当、但使用成本要低得多的模型。Robots — the sector Mr. Xi first championed in his 2014 speech — have been a particular success. China has more than 2 million robots in its factories, more than in the rest of the world combined. Some Chinese researchers have argued that robots may be more promising for achieving general-purpose intelligence than large language models — Silicon Valley’s chosen method — because they can learn from interactions with the physical world.习近平在2014年讲话中首先提倡的机器人领域取得了尤为突出的成功。中国工厂里拥有超过200万台机器人，数量比世界其他地区的总和还要多。一些中国研究人员已经提出，在实现通用人工智能方面，机器人或许比大型语言模型（硅谷所选择的路径）更具潜力，因为它们能够从与物理世界的交互中学习。Those rapid gains have fueled anxiety in Washington, where fears of being overtaken by China have become the main argument against reining in A.I. A congressional advisory group warned that China’s quick adoption of A.I. in robots and other practical applications would generate huge amounts of new data that could then be used to further improve its models. In July, the U.S. government proposed restricting imports of humanoid robots, a move Beijing denounced as discriminatory.这些飞速进步加剧了华盛顿的焦虑，在那里，被中国超越的恐惧已成为反对约束人工智能发展的主要论点。一家国会咨询机构警告称，中国在机器人和其他实际应用中迅速推广人工智能将产生海量新数据，这些数据随后可用于进一步提升其模型性能。今年7月，美国政府提议限制人形机器人的进口，北京方面谴责此举具有歧视性。For people like Mr. Liang, the robotics company founder in Shenzhen, the signs of China’s progress are already all around.对于像深圳机器人公司创始人梁哲这样的人而言，中国取得进步的迹象已随处可见。He still admires American entrepreneurs, but he no longer looks only to them for inspiration. He wears smart glasses from Huawei. He has hired interns from American universities who are eager to learn from China’s robotics expertise.他依然钦佩美国企业家，但他已不再只从他们身上获得启迪。他戴着华为智能眼镜。他聘用了来自美国大学的实习生，这些年轻人渴望学习中国机器人技术领域的专业知识。“Before, we all used American technology as the benchmark, and we’d joke about ‘C-to-C’: ‘copy to China,’” Mr. Liang said. “I think it’s the mission of this generation of Chinese entrepreneurs to let the world know that some Chinese companies are different.”“以前我们开玩笑就是摸着美国的科技圈过河，你有什么我有这个对标就完了。很多年前中国讲的模式就是C to C(Copy to China)，”梁哲说。“我觉得这其实是这一代中国企业家一个使命，就是让世界要知道中国其实有一些企业是不一样的。”Siyi Zhao对本文有研究贡献。王月眉(Vivian Wang)是时报驻纽约记者，报道中国的崛起及雄心如何影响中国国内外民众的生活。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。