Latest / The In-Between Tech and Trust Podcast / AI in China and in Europe: Trust, Differences, and Future Implications - Vincent Xiang, Founder China AI Connect (EP 26)

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AI in China and in Europe: Trust, Differences, and Future Implications - Vincent Xiang, Founder China AI Connect (EP 26) · The In-Between Tech and Trust Podcast

• 0:14
  Hello, this is Eva. And you're listening to the In
• 0:17
  Between Tech and Trust podcast right now.
• 0:20
  There is a global race on the way, as you all might know.
• 0:22
  And we all ask ourselves, well, who is it going to be?
• 0:27
  And also how is it going to turn out on a global scale?
• 0:31
  And most of the European conversation about it is
• 0:34
  happening at a significant remove from what is actually on
• 0:38
  the ground and feasible in China.
• 0:40
  And so I'm particularly intrigued that this week's guest
• 0:43
  is one of the. A few people.
• 0:45
  In a position to actually help us understand of what's going on
• 0:49
  and also look into the gap of knowledge that we might have.
• 0:53
  And so Vincent Xiang is the founder of China AI Connect.
• 0:57
  He's based out of Europe, but he's someone who works daily
• 1:01
  between Chinese AI founders and European investors.
• 1:05
  And in his role, he's advising both sides on what the other is
• 1:09
  actually doing and what they might also get wrong about each
• 1:14
  other, what they might benefit from each other.
• 1:16
  And so in our conversation, we get deep into whether China's AI
• 1:22
  deployment is genuinely A surveillance dystopia, whether
• 1:26
  that Labels has more about Western assumptions than Chinese
• 1:31
  reality. And we also talk about what
• 1:33
  European companies and investors are misreading about the Chinese
• 1:38
  AI landscape and what it means that the world is currently
• 1:42
  splitting into distinct and possibly well maybe permanent AI
• 1:46
  blocks, which we're currently not quite sure about and which
• 1:50
  we'll definitely need some follow up and seeing whether or
• 1:54
  where it's headed. The question underneath for me
• 1:57
  was a significant one because in a global.
• 2:01
  AI arms race Can we actually? Trust between the ecosystems
• 2:06
  that we build and or is managing the gap a realistic ambition
• 2:11
  overall? Welcome, Vincent, and I'm so
• 2:16
  happy to have you on the In Between Tech and Trust podcast.
• 2:19
  Thank you, Eva, it's a pleasure to be here and thank you for
• 2:22
  inviting me. I was really looking forward to
• 2:24
  our conversation because you're one of the experts to talk all
• 2:28
  the happenings that we can refer to when it comes to tech in
• 2:32
  China most of all, and also, you know, bridging the technological
• 2:38
  progress between Europe and China overall.
• 2:41
  And when you think about the intersection of technology and
• 2:45
  trust, what is the very first thing that comes to your mind,
• 2:48
  particularly from a perspective of working between China and the
• 2:52
  global AI ecosystem? I think this is a really good
• 2:56
  start for the conversation. So the first word coming to my
• 2:59
  mind is actually difference. So let me explain a bit more.
• 3:02
  So as you said, I working in between the two ecosystems,
• 3:06
  China and Europe. I often think that technology
• 3:09
  and trust is understood across China and Europe very
• 3:13
  differently. In China, for example, when we
• 3:15
  launch a new product and new services, people can ask how
• 3:18
  does this going to change our lives?
• 3:20
  How does it this going to improve our lives?
• 3:22
  Will you save time? We need to improve our quality
• 3:25
  of living. So when they think that the
• 3:27
  answer is yes, they are willing to try it and then over time the
• 3:30
  trust will build, right? If you look at Alipay and WeChat
• 3:33
  Pay, together they are serving 1.8 billion accounts in China.
• 3:37
  People use it for every cent network payment, for
• 3:39
  transportation, for online working, etcetera.
• 3:41
  So they are more willing to use and taste and new ideas and new
• 3:45
  products In China, when I look at Europe, it's often very
• 3:49
  different. So the first question people
• 3:51
  often ask is, so where is a guardrail, right?
• 3:53
  Is that safe for my data, where my data is going to be stored,
• 3:57
  how it's going to be collected? So there's more cautious number
• 4:00
  caution when it comes to like trying new technology.
• 4:03
  And so this is coming more from the different kind of history
• 4:06
  and different value and that actually shapes how AI is
• 4:10
  regulated, how AI is adopted, how AI is used across China and
• 4:15
  Europe. And now you've founded the AI
• 4:18
  Connect, and that means that you're building an understanding
• 4:23
  across systems and cultures, but also across stakeholders.
• 4:27
  And it will be interesting for me to know what motivated you
• 4:31
  personally to step into this. Also themely fitting in between
• 4:36
  space. Yeah, wonderful.
• 4:38
  I started a China AI Connect around six months ago.
• 4:42
  First of all, I think AI in China, AI in Europe is a great
• 4:46
  kind of topic, right? People are so interested to know
• 4:49
  what is happening there, across Europe, across China.
• 4:52
  I work with some founders in China to help them understand
• 4:55
  the EU market and also work with European investors and
• 4:59
  corporates to help them understand whether China AI is
• 5:03
  relevant to their strategy to the business and whether
• 5:05
  specific Chinese companies invest and compliant.
• 5:08
  So I worked with people from both sides and I realized that,
• 5:11
  you know, it's interesting that the the small people, often they
• 5:14
  don't understand each other. There's like, you know, general
• 5:17
  gap between Europe and China, how they perceive, how they
• 5:20
  like, interpret, trust, interpret AI and technology.
• 5:23
  So that is actually the reason I want to start China AI Connect.
• 5:27
  So my role is actually a translator and a connector.
• 5:31
  I translate reality to make sure people understand what is
• 5:34
  happening, what is hype, what is real traction in the market and
• 5:39
  also help them validate the assumptions regarding
• 5:42
  partnership, regarding investment.
• 5:44
  And also when there is unreal intent to engage deeper, I
• 5:48
  connect the two parts together. So I also organize, for example,
• 5:51
  some trips to bring the European executives to China so that they
• 5:54
  can meet the founders and operators on the ground.
• 5:58
  And now when you translate realities and also when you
• 6:02
  build bridges, so to say, and when you follow along the
• 6:05
  Western debates that are happening right now, trust and
• 6:09
  tech is most of the time framed around individual rights or also
• 6:14
  skepticism, as you pointed out, sometimes also the regulation
• 6:17
  aspects. How is trust and technology
• 6:20
  understood in China? I think I think in China that
• 6:24
  fast technology is much less about individual rights, but
• 6:28
  more about, you know, whether this is a working to improve my
• 6:31
  life or to improve the life collectively.
• 6:34
  As I also hinted earlier, when when we have a new product or
• 6:37
  new kind of technology, people often ask question, you know,
• 6:40
  whether this is going to help the city be safer, help our life
• 6:44
  be better. Does it really reduce the time
• 6:47
  So when they are when they're convinced that this is you're
• 6:51
  working and you have the trust which is built quickly.
• 6:55
  So one example is Alipay. We all know Alipay many years
• 6:59
  ago when Alibaba started the business, the e-commerce
• 7:01
  business, at that time people didn't trust the strangers.
• 7:05
  They don't want to know pay to online seller before they
• 7:08
  receive the goods. But then Alibaba introduced this
• 7:11
  escrow system. So basically the sellers only
• 7:14
  get the get the money when the consumers confirm that they have
• 7:18
  received the goods. So people don't really trust the
• 7:20
  strangers, but it's fasten the system they trust that, you
• 7:23
  know, this a system that is reliable, that is networking,
• 7:27
  that is improving our lives so that we can buy sense online at
• 7:30
  a cheap cost. We can get the goods delivered
• 7:33
  on time. So that is actually, you know,
• 7:35
  when we how we approach the new technology in China.
• 7:38
  And then using the same logic in many other areas like red
• 7:41
  hailing, the food delivery healthcare apps.
• 7:44
  But if you compare that with with Europe, right, where people
• 7:47
  often, you know, want to transparency and safeguards
• 7:49
  first before they're willing to to trust.
• 7:52
  So in China, we often like to pay more your attention on
• 7:54
  experience, if the experience is is OK, is reliable, is like
• 7:59
  trustworthy and the adoption and the trust follow suit
• 8:02
  afterwards. What you know described was
• 8:05
  quite from the business perspective, but from also your
• 8:09
  experiences and the involvement that you have other differences
• 8:14
  on the cultural, historical and also on a societal level, which
• 8:19
  might vary kind of a bit because there are also so many nuances
• 8:24
  to it. Yeah, exactly.
• 8:26
  China is a big country, so there's a lot of nuances.
• 8:28
  So, you know, my generation, especially my parents
• 8:31
  generation, so people in China were living in poverty.
• 8:34
  And my generation, we have seen that, you know, the economy has
• 8:38
  been developing so fast and we have eradicated extreme poverty.
• 8:41
  And there are so many like middle class people now in
• 8:44
  China. So when we grew up in poverty
• 8:47
  and then see the society has been transformed to still
• 8:50
  technologies to a larger scale, kind of, you know, factories
• 8:53
  kind of solutions. We have a tendency to believe
• 8:56
  that the larger scale kind of solution or infrastructure is
• 9:00
  working. And that is why I think, you
• 9:02
  know, in my generation, people are more willing to try
• 9:04
  nuisance. They are more willing to
• 9:06
  actually accept or embrace new technology.
• 9:09
  And then that is the axe. That is a cultural part, right?
• 9:12
  Compared with, you know, other societies, I think Chinese
• 9:14
  people, we are more willing to open and to new technologies.
• 9:17
  If you look at society, I think definitely there's a difference
• 9:20
  because, you know, China is so big and so diverse.
• 9:23
  When you go to cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, hear those
• 9:27
  people talking about, you know, robotaxis and autonomous driving
• 9:30
  and the AI models. But when you go to rural cities
• 9:33
  like the third tier cities, people are so happy when they
• 9:35
  can pay online with their phone rather than going to the banks,
• 9:40
  right? So there's definitely the
• 9:42
  progress is distributed unevenly in China, but overall people are
• 9:46
  more winning and more open to accepting new technologies.
• 9:50
  And now you've described a bit the different kinds of societal
• 9:53
  approaches and also adoptions to technology overall in China.
• 9:58
  But where do you see the biggest cultural mismatches?
• 10:02
  When Western companies try to interpret, use or also
• 10:07
  incorporate Chinese AI strategy and progresses and the other way
• 10:13
  around as well. I, I think actually the, I think
• 10:16
  the biggest cultural mismatch is also coming from the first
• 10:20
  question we ask ourselves. In Europe, the first question is
• 10:23
  often about, is this legitimate? Is it, you know, safe?
• 10:26
  Does it respect individual rights?
• 10:28
  But in China, the first question is often more about, you know,
• 10:31
  does it work? Does it improve efficiency?
• 10:33
  Does it help the system run better because of that?
• 10:37
  And the Western companies often take look at Chinese AI systems
• 10:41
  and see many as a way of control or a demonstration of power.
• 10:46
  I think that perspective actually means how much of the
• 10:50
  focus is actually on productivity, on logistics, on
• 10:53
  healthcare and economic upgrading.
• 10:56
  Speed and iteration are seen as very positive in China.
• 11:00
  On the other side, I also seen that Chinese companies often
• 11:03
  misunderstood European companies in opposite way.
• 11:06
  They they think that regulation in Europe is, is slow, is
• 11:10
  inefficient. So many founders ask me, you
• 11:11
  know, why it's so hard to get a license in Europe, but why it's
• 11:14
  so hard? Why the consumers worry so much
• 11:16
  about data sharing, Right. And I tell them that in Europe,
• 11:19
  individual rights and the accountability is actually the
• 11:22
  better of trust. So you have to be really
• 11:25
  insured. That is, you know, understood
• 11:26
  properly before you think about scaling to, to Europe.
• 11:30
  When the two sides have this kind of misunderstanding, it's
• 11:33
  harder for them to to, to build trust, to build relationship.
• 11:37
  So I always talk with the two sides, say that you need to
• 11:40
  understand the nuances and the differences, and then the trust
• 11:44
  and the relationship will form more naturally.
• 11:46
  And now when we look at the closer into the way that a like
• 11:51
  China also approaches AI and within China, there's also most
• 11:59
  of the time the portrait of AI being a superpower.
• 12:03
  And it would be nice to understand from your experience
• 12:08
  if that state is also sometimes being perceived as maybe a
• 12:13
  surveillance dystopia, and if So, what the actual current
• 12:19
  status and if this is really accurate.
• 12:22
  Yeah, that's interesting. Eva.
• 12:24
  I I think both labels right AI superpower and the surveillance
• 12:28
  dystopia are a bit over overly simplified.
• 12:31
  From what I've what I've seen on the ground, China's AI landscape
• 12:35
  is very strong in application and in deployment, but are more
• 12:40
  constrained in in the foundations.
• 12:42
  And what I mean is that China is extremely good at deploying AI
• 12:46
  in real world settings at scale. You often see that AI in
• 12:49
  payments where fraud detection runs on massive scale.
• 12:53
  You see AI in manufacturing where AI is now used for quality
• 12:57
  control or for predictive maintenance.
• 13:01
  At the same time, Chinese also depended on the foreign
• 13:03
  technologies, especially from the US, like advanced
• 13:06
  semiconductor chips for NVIDIA, high end manufacturing
• 13:09
  equipment. So this carries no real
• 13:12
  bottleneck. So China is powerful in using
• 13:14
  and deploying AI, but more constraint in the critical
• 13:18
  hardware and technology that, you know, shows you where China
• 13:21
  is today in terms of AI deployment.
• 13:23
  We are catching up very fast. We are developing very fast, but
• 13:27
  there's always some critical dependency on the US technology.
• 13:31
  You mentioned the surveillance dystopia.
• 13:34
  This is interesting. I, I think on the surveillance
• 13:37
  question, my personal experience is, is interesting.
• 13:40
  I, I live in Germany for seven years.
• 13:42
  I have many German friends. And when they visit China,
• 13:45
  right, they notice that, you know, there are cameras
• 13:47
  everywhere in cities like, you know, Shanghai and Hangzhou.
• 13:50
  They would expect that people to feel like uncomfortable because
• 13:55
  there's their cameras, maybe they feel being monitored, but
• 13:57
  they notice that, hey, people don't really notice that camera
• 14:01
  is there and they live the normal lives.
• 14:03
  And they talk more about, you know, what, how the, the
• 14:06
  congestion is reduced, how the accident has been prevented, how
• 14:11
  that improves people's safety. The, the, the, the city's net
• 14:14
  efficiency for local people. These systems are experienced
• 14:18
  more as infrastructure, not as the political tools, right?
• 14:22
  So, so of course, like there are also some concerns in terms of
• 14:26
  that, you know, there are some reports showing that some data
• 14:29
  leak may happen. So facial recognition has been
• 14:33
  misused. So some companies also have
• 14:35
  collected more data than they should.
• 14:37
  So people have concerns. They also complain online and
• 14:40
  yes and no source as well. You highlighted and you dove
• 14:44
  with us into the current state. Do you have any hints on where
• 14:49
  it's headed in the future? Yeah, I think, I think AI is
• 14:53
  developing very fast now in China and that you have seen so
• 14:55
  many progresses and so many experimentations and pilots in
• 14:59
  the past. Now I think it's very clear that
• 15:02
  the society were the progress isn't moving away from a phase
• 15:07
  of experimentation or pilot into a phase of no fast and larger
• 15:11
  scale real AI deployments. So, so now the question would be
• 15:15
  how we actually turn AI into stable product across the
• 15:19
  economy, how we actually monetize our solutions, right.
• 15:22
  It's not just about, you know, investing into some R&D, but
• 15:25
  more about how to actually make money with with AI.
• 15:28
  And you see this in national strategies like the AI 2030.
• 15:32
  China aims to become a leading AI technology provider by 20-30.
• 15:36
  And there's a broader AI Plus initiative which aims to push AI
• 15:40
  adoption to more than 90% across the major industries.
• 15:44
  So it's about embedding AI, you know, deeply into the economy
• 15:47
  and people's and daily lives. At the same time, regulation is
• 15:50
  also tightening. We have aligned some basic AI
• 15:53
  laws, but China now is also drafting more comprehensive AI
• 15:57
  regulation, especially around generative AI data security and
• 16:02
  safety reviews. So the message is quite clear,
• 16:04
  you can innovate in China, but within certain boundaries.
• 16:07
  And the next phase is not really about a piloting or showcasing
• 16:12
  your capability. It's more about how to actually,
• 16:14
  you know, use AI, leverage AI to improve our lives and how to
• 16:17
  actually monetize the solutions. I think it's quite fascinating
• 16:20
  how you talked about the way that it's supposed and you also
• 16:24
  talked about the way of how it's more about the implementation
• 16:28
  part and like really getting the value out of AI.
• 16:30
  What role does trust play in China particularly and also in
• 16:36
  terms of its rapid AI adoption? I think, yeah, any kind of
• 16:41
  market and we want to transform a lot of industries.
• 16:45
  I think the trust is one of the most important and most
• 16:48
  underestimated kind of reasons. The one as spreads so fast in
• 16:51
  China people often talk about population size right?
• 16:54
  The market demand, the government of power, etc.
• 16:57
  Or engineering talent. All of that matters.
• 17:00
  But without fast nothing will really work.
• 17:03
  Especially in technology from what I've seen.
• 17:05
  I think it's faster place to 2 main roles.
• 17:08
  The first is that it reduces friction.
• 17:10
  A new system is introduced. People usually start with simple
• 17:14
  questions like does it really make my life easier?
• 17:16
  2nd and the tries to speed up adoption because people are
• 17:19
  willing to try it. When you when you see that it's
• 17:21
  working reliably, it improve the lives collectively, then you
• 17:27
  seen adoption speed up quickly, right?
• 17:29
  So definitely this kind of fast adoption are based on trust, how
• 17:34
  people people are feel, whether people feel comfortable enough
• 17:37
  to use it on a daily basis. Are there any differences when
• 17:42
  it comes to trust in terms of also trusting into institutions
• 17:48
  or in the platforms? You've now mentioned several
• 17:50
  ones that are based out of China or in state coordination that
• 17:55
  sometimes also are being perceived as quiet, you know,
• 18:00
  based on heritage in China or so to say.
• 18:03
  Same, Yeah. I think definitely there are
• 18:04
  some differences among the different layers, right?
• 18:08
  You mentioned institutions and platforms and governments.
• 18:10
  Now from what I see on the ground, I feel like in a trust
• 18:13
  is built through the three layers which are more
• 18:16
  coordinated and connected, right, The government platforms
• 18:19
  and the institutions. First the government says the
• 18:22
  direction, right? And they tell the the market,
• 18:25
  hey, the AI is a priority. They also mobilize the foundings
• 18:29
  to support the early movers, the startups and those kind of early
• 18:33
  companies and to develop the technology.
• 18:37
  And they also sometimes like, you know, provide really some
• 18:40
  policy support to help them launch the product.
• 18:43
  And then the second is a platform.
• 18:45
  We have companies like Alibaba and Tencent, and those are
• 18:48
  leading tech companies. They actually turn the policy
• 18:51
  into products. So they work together with the
• 18:54
  regulators, with the government to actually build scalable
• 18:57
  solutions for people to use. And then you have the
• 19:00
  institutions you mentioned, which are, for example, the
• 19:03
  hospitals, the schools, the city governments.
• 19:06
  So these institutions, they normalize the usage, they adopt
• 19:10
  these systems provided by the tech companies or the startups
• 19:14
  and they, you know, also current environment that you can
• 19:17
  actually make it easy for people to use and adopt those
• 19:20
  technologies. So, so one good example is the
• 19:23
  Hangzhou's and city brain, the government, they defined the
• 19:27
  priorities, say, hey, we want to optimize the traffic management
• 19:30
  in Hangzhou. And the Alibaba built the AI
• 19:33
  system and the city, they adopted it as early customer.
• 19:38
  And now people see that the commute time has been reduced,
• 19:42
  the accident has been reduced, and the city becomes more,
• 19:45
  becomes safer. So this kind of collaborative
• 19:48
  and effort is showing that this 3 layers in China kind of like
• 19:52
  reinforce each other. Of course, you have this kind of
• 19:54
  structure elsewhere. But if I look at Europe, for
• 19:57
  example, I feel like it's in my humble opinion, I feel like
• 20:01
  these layers are more separated because they think about, you
• 20:04
  know, individual rights. How's that?
• 20:06
  That actually interfere with, you know, my my rights, my
• 20:09
  privacy. So you can at some point slow
• 20:11
  down the coordination. And you highlighted now some of
• 20:15
  the players that are like super present in the Chinese market.
• 20:19
  And I think what we can derive and it's independent of the
• 20:23
  Chinese market, but we can see it on a global scale as well
• 20:26
  that there is a fragmented tech stack and there are also sort of
• 20:32
  fragmented kind of approaches to regulations or AI enormous.
• 20:37
  How do you like perceive Chinese players of how they look into
• 20:41
  this? Yeah, I mean, I, I talked with
• 20:44
  the founders in China. I feel like most of them, they
• 20:47
  think that their fragmentation will be kind of like permanent
• 20:51
  now, right. You know, 10 or 15 years ago,
• 20:53
  many founders, many people think that, hey, we're going to have
• 20:56
  one global Internet and one set of standards, one set of, you
• 20:59
  know, dominant ecosystem. And the idea is actually gone
• 21:04
  because now with also geopolitical risk, that is
• 21:07
  regarded as the part of the normal business in reality.
• 21:10
  Now, when I talk with some Chinese founders, especially
• 21:13
  those that are trying to expand globally, they often also see
• 21:17
  that Europe is so hard to navigate due to the
• 21:19
  fragmentation. There's one rule in Germany, one
• 21:22
  rule in France, one rule in Brussels.
• 21:25
  So that is why it's complicated from their perspective.
• 21:28
  Oftentimes they think this, this is inefficient and this is slow.
• 21:32
  And the same time, I also see that Europe is trying to address
• 21:34
  this, this issue, right. We, we know that the initiative
• 21:37
  like EU Ink are meant to reduce fragmentation and to harmonize
• 21:42
  the rules across European member States.
• 21:45
  So I definitely think that's the right direction.
• 21:47
  But in my opinion, I think realistically, I don't think
• 21:49
  fragmentation is going to go away anytime soon, especially
• 21:53
  AI. We are moving towards a
• 21:54
  different kind of techno technological flow.
• 21:57
  If you look at US, the market is characterized by many large
• 22:03
  proprietary closed source models dominated by open AI or isopic.
• 22:07
  And in China, the ecosystem is or it's much more open.
• 22:10
  We have open source of framework.
• 22:12
  Many kind of models like Alibaba's Quinn, like Deep Sea
• 22:15
  can, they're all open source. So different technology will
• 22:18
  lead to different standards, spent business models and
• 22:20
  different regulation. And so it's more likely that the
• 22:23
  whole world will diverge into different AI ecosystems in the
• 22:26
  future. And you will continue to see the
• 22:28
  fragmentation globally. And that is why I often advise
• 22:33
  the founders or the executives and when they are trying to
• 22:36
  expand globally. I think this should definitely
• 22:39
  and understand very early on the differences between regulation,
• 22:43
  you know, how fast it's been built.
• 22:45
  And also to build a compliance early on from day one into the
• 22:50
  product, the compliance that should be treated as a core
• 22:52
  feature on the product rather than a legal afterthought,
• 22:55
  right? Right.
• 22:56
  That will save you a lot of money when you address this you
• 22:59
  know later. You said you talk a lot to
• 23:02
  Chinese and startup founders and also the ecosystem that's on the
• 23:06
  ground of how they think about AI when it becomes both an
• 23:10
  economic engine, but then again also a geopolitic instrument
• 23:16
  that we can see that this is also available going forward.
• 23:20
  From my experience, my conversations with executives
• 23:23
  and people close to policy in China, I'd say that Chinese
• 23:27
  leaders are increasingly seeing AIS, strategic infrastructure.
• 23:31
  I think the first priority is productivity and also
• 23:35
  efficiency. AI is seen as a way to upgrade
• 23:38
  manufacturing, logistics, energy and services in China, like many
• 23:42
  other countries. And China's are facing the same
• 23:44
  challenge in terms of, you know, rising labor costs, aging
• 23:47
  population and slowing growth, right?
• 23:50
  So leaders really look at AI as a way to maintain global
• 23:54
  competitiveness without also relying too much on US
• 23:57
  technology. So especially due to the
• 23:59
  geopolitical tension between US and China.
• 24:02
  And there's also growing concern about using US technology.
• 24:06
  So it's also a national priority to be technologically self
• 24:11
  reliant, especially to reduce dependency on those critical
• 24:14
  hardwares like semiconductors, you know, cloud infrastructures,
• 24:18
  you know, from US. So these are all seen as a
• 24:20
  strategic choke points. And now in terms of like
• 24:23
  technology experts, I think China always want to, you know,
• 24:27
  export this technology to other countries also to grow their
• 24:30
  market share, the footprint. So exporting sense like smart
• 24:34
  city systems, industrial automation or digital platforms.
• 24:38
  This is not just about business, right?
• 24:40
  It's also about to to have influence and to have to create
• 24:43
  standards so that there's, you know, ecosystem that is working
• 24:46
  together to address the global problems.
• 24:49
  So if the technology becomes widely used abroad, the
• 24:53
  technical norms and practices will spread together with that.
• 24:57
  I think that's one of the crucial aspects that still needs
• 25:00
  to be, you know, also defined and probably also unpacked
• 25:03
  further and also monitor it if you go along the way.
• 25:08
  And that is one of the benefits of your role.
• 25:10
  Because basically you're at the linchpin of also accompanying
• 25:14
  that and accompanying also that together with European corporate
• 25:18
  leaders and the investors that assess different kinds of
• 25:21
  Chinese AI infrastructures. How this works of how your role
• 25:25
  works. And also how like what
• 25:27
  challenges you encounter when you dive into the strategy, the
• 25:32
  specific Chinese opportunities with investors and the
• 25:35
  compliance aspects of that in collaborating with the clients
• 25:40
  or the ecosystem that you've formed?
• 25:42
  So I work with both sides, both China and Europe.
• 25:45
  So my role as a founder of China Air Connect, I help the European
• 25:49
  investors and corporates evaluate whether China AI is
• 25:52
  relevant to their business and to their strategy and whether a
• 25:55
  specific Chinese company is investor point compliant.
• 25:58
  On the China side, I help the founders understand the European
• 26:02
  market and also to help them you find the go to market strategy
• 26:06
  and to help them with product scaling.
• 26:09
  So I have the privilege to work with very small people from both
• 26:12
  sides. And as I said earlier, my role
• 26:15
  is more like a transmitter and connector.
• 26:16
  So I do enjoy those kind of, you know, work to really help the
• 26:20
  conversation, to help the decision making and to connect
• 26:23
  the two parts together. And now I do see that and
• 26:25
  there's a strong growing interest about China, especially
• 26:29
  after deep sick people realize that China AI is developing,
• 26:33
  developing so fast and the gap between US and the China is
• 26:36
  narrowing very fast. They want to understand what's
• 26:38
  really happening in China, what's, you know, real, what's
• 26:40
  the, the hype or what's like a real fraction in China.
• 26:43
  But I think in the challenge now is, is that many European
• 26:48
  investors are still very cautious about China.
• 26:50
  So they know that and there's some very fundamental kind of
• 26:53
  challenges in terms of data transfer, right regulation,
• 26:57
  geopolitical risks, and those are all the factors and that
• 27:01
  often times slow down the decision.
• 27:03
  So I, I think it's, it's no easy, it's difficult to turn
• 27:07
  from, I'm interested to, I'm investing in China, I'm going to
• 27:10
  China. So the gap is still quite big.
• 27:12
  So my goal is actually make it easy for people to understand
• 27:17
  what's really happening in China and also to help them, you know,
• 27:20
  connect with the founders and operators on the ground so that
• 27:24
  they can go to China to see with their own eyes and to experience
• 27:27
  technology by themselves, to form their own DP opinions.
• 27:31
  And if you now look at that from particularly an individual point
• 27:35
  of view and those who are building products or Koreas at
• 27:39
  exactly like the intersection of the, you know, Chinese markets
• 27:43
  and the tech and products that there are, we're out there,
• 27:47
  particularly when we look into the entrance of it.
• 27:50
  Do you have any hints on what the role and like of credibility
• 27:55
  looks like and how trust like feeds into that and also how it
• 28:00
  is needed to be established kind of way of entering the market in
• 28:04
  itself? So once never learned from my
• 28:07
  work with China's companies and European companies, I think it's
• 28:10
  important to understand that presence matters more than brand
• 28:14
  new when it comes to beauty relationships in China, right?
• 28:16
  You know, it's a very relationship driven society.
• 28:21
  There's a word guanxi, which is a very popular in business
• 28:24
  business setting business, you know, environments.
• 28:28
  So you need to be committed and also to be consistent when it
• 28:33
  comes to building relationships with with the company's
• 28:36
  ecosystems in China. Talking about, for example,
• 28:39
  Siemens and Bosch, those German companies that have been in
• 28:41
  China for decades and they have invested in factories, you know,
• 28:45
  ID centers, they work with universities, they work with no
• 28:48
  governments and regulators. And that is not how they build
• 28:52
  trust and build, you know, the real connection in China, right
• 28:56
  through consistent presence and commitment in China.
• 29:00
  So that is definitely the good way to start because I often see
• 29:03
  that now it's important for the European companies and to embed
• 29:08
  themselves into the China local ecosystem.
• 29:10
  Let's book a trip to go to China to talk with the founders and
• 29:13
  the operators and to be to visit a few factories and companies
• 29:17
  etcetera. And then it's a much better way
• 29:19
  to actually understand what's happening and also to spark
• 29:23
  conversations about a partnership, etcetera.
• 29:25
  And we've not talked a lot about the present, but I do want to
• 29:29
  try to look with you in the future.
• 29:31
  How do you see the future of AI converging or not?
• 29:36
  And then how is it also different between China and the
• 29:40
  West? I think in terms of technology,
• 29:43
  I do see that. So there are different kind of
• 29:44
  priorities when I when I talk with the developers in the West,
• 29:49
  let's take example of USI think their priority is more about how
• 29:54
  to develop the best models, how to actually have the as many,
• 29:59
  you know, users as possible, how to actually spread and like Dr.
• 30:03
  adoption. But in China, I think the focus
• 30:06
  is not really about building the best model, but more about
• 30:09
  making how to adopt AI as deeply as possible into the economy
• 30:13
  across different industries. As I mentioned earlier, 30 AI
• 30:16
  2030 aims to boost AI adoption to more than 90% across all the
• 30:23
  industries, right? So we'll focus more on how to
• 30:25
  use AI, how to deploy AI. So that is a bit different from
• 30:29
  the West. And in terms of how people see
• 30:32
  AI as in general, people are very, in China, people are very
• 30:35
  optimistic and open to this new technology.
• 30:37
  And I this partly because of cultural reasons, but also we
• 30:41
  see that AI is going to be the best way to solve some issues
• 30:46
  like aging population. You don't want to, you know,
• 30:48
  rely on having more workers, but you want to make it faster and
• 30:52
  more efficient using technology like AI, right?
• 30:55
  And in China, because of the favourable policy and also
• 30:59
  reliable supply chain, I think it's very likely that we're
• 31:02
  going to have the mass production of robots in the
• 31:05
  coming years. That will definitely be a great
• 31:08
  thing to to to see how that will for people's knives in different
• 31:13
  industries, manufacturing, service industries and also even
• 31:16
  people's home with human or the robots.
• 31:18
  That's very interesting to watch.
• 31:20
  I think the like progress in all aspects of how robotic progress
• 31:26
  has been made is just incredible of also to follow along in the
• 31:31
  Chinese market. You know, we need to follow that
• 31:34
  along from a different kind of perspective, but then again,
• 31:37
  also of how it's going to be connected to the whole area of
• 31:41
  the progress that AI makes in itself.
• 31:44
  And I think it's going to be super interesting to follow
• 31:47
  along of how both of those worlds also both of those
• 31:50
  developments are going to be converging.
• 31:53
  But for now, I do want to end our conversation with the
• 31:57
  so-called in between moments because these are moments that I
• 32:00
  want to have with all of my guests in the end of the
• 32:02
  conversation that we've already had.
• 32:04
  When it comes to the first questions that I kind of throw
• 32:09
  out there, and it's for you particularly, what does trust
• 32:12
  and technology mean when it becomes tangible?
• 32:15
  So the trust technology becomes tangible through conversation
• 32:19
  and connection. And where does China's AI
• 32:22
  strength lie in? Definitely in scale and speed.
• 32:26
  And how does the West differentiate towards that?
• 32:30
  And I would say a differentiate in core technology and
• 32:34
  governance. And the geopolitics and tech
• 32:38
  perspective, are they friends or first?
• 32:41
  Definitely. I think you should be both right
• 32:43
  depending. OK, I, I would love to dive into
• 32:47
  that right now, but that's not how the moments work.
• 32:50
  So I'm just going to throw right out the last question that I
• 32:53
  have towards you and it would be one word that you have that
• 32:57
  you're currently in between. I hope I can use a sentence
• 32:59
  actually. I mean between.
• 33:01
  I'm like building the real trusted connections between
• 33:04
  China and Europe. And I think it's one of the most
• 33:07
  relevant things that you can dive into.
• 33:09
  And I'm very grateful to have had you as a guest on the
• 33:12
  podcast. Thank you so much for joining us
• 33:15
  and joining me on this also deep dive into the way of the
• 33:18
  differences that there are on between regions.
• 33:21
  And I hope to talk to you soon again.
• 33:23
  Thank you so much, Eva. It's really fun and thank you
• 33:26
  for having me. It's a pleasure.