Executive Summary

China’s intent to create broadly capable artificial intelligence, also called “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), was announced in its 2017 “New Generation AI Development Plan” and is championed by leading Chinese scientists and AI institutions.

This study assesses the plausibility of these claims by examining Chinese scientific papers published in Chinese and English between 2018 and 2022 for evidence of related research. While most such papers are on routine AI applications, a significant body of research was found on AGI precursor technologies, indicating that China’s claims to be working toward artificial general intelligence are genuine and must be taken seriously.

The study reaches the following conclusions:

• Published scientific studies indicate China is actively researching general AI.
• Chinese research on advanced (general) AI is shared over a broad talent base.
• The greatest concentration of Chinese AGI research is in the Beijing area.
• Global contributions support the research but are not its main drivers.

Given the need to monitor AI developments into the future, this study outlines the methods it used to reach these conclusions. These local efforts, a demonstration of open sources’ ability to track foreign science and technology (S&T) in general, cannot be sustained independently and should be augmented by a national program to avoid surprise and ensure access to global scientific publications.