By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily

Recently, the Chinese and U.S. heads of state had constructive exchanges on artificial intelligence (AI) and agreed to hold dialogue between the two governments on this issue. 

At present, China-U.S. relations have generally remained stable, with both sides agreeing on a new vision of building a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability. 

As two global powerhouses in AI sector, China and the United States working together to advance AI development and governance is not only a concrete step toward implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state, but will also help ensure that AI better serves the progress of human civilization and the shared well-being of the international community.

As intelligent transformation accelerates, whether China and the United States can strengthen exchanges and cooperation in AI bears not only on technological advancement and the broader adoption of AI applications, but also on the ability to effectively address the risks and challenges that accompany them.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger repeatedly pointed out that cooperation between China and the United States is particularly important when tackling complex global challenges such as AI governance. 

The two countries share extensive overlapping interests in AI sector and should move past zero-sum thinking and confrontation to jointly nurture sustainable AI technological growth.

China and the United States have previously co-sponsored each other’s AI-related resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly, while maintaining regular communication and dialogue via Track II channels. These interactions demonstrate that the two sides are capable of engaging constructively in this important field.

China remains open to deeper communication and coordination with the international community, including the United States, to promote the establishment of a broadly supported global AI governance framework and standards system.

Recently, A reporter from ABC tested self-driving vehicles in Beijing, while a Fox News host ordered grilled sausages from an AI-powered robotic convenience store kiosk also in the city. They remarked that in China, AI is not a technology of the future — it is already part of everyday life.

Innovation in AI thrives on cross-border collaboration, and broad cooperation can accelerate technological progress. Industry observers generally believe that China and the United States have different areas of focus across AI research and development, applications, and regulation, making their respective experiences complementary to a certain extent. 

On the basis of mutual respect, the two sides can fully leverage their comparative strengths, achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, and accelerate both technological progress and wider application of AI. As an article published by MIT Technology Review noted, major countries must work together in the field of AI to ensure that the technology genuinely benefits all humanity.

Existing market practices have repeatedly demonstrated the enormous potential of China-U.S. AI cooperation and its capacity to deliver mutually beneficial results. 

China has become the world’s largest holder of AI patents and an important engine of the global intelligent transformation, creating broad market opportunities for U.S. businesses. China’s cost-effective, high-performance open-source large language models continue to attract global attention, while U.S. technology companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, and AMD have actively partnered with China’s AI industry players across various business avenues.

Chinese multinational tech company Lenovo and Nvidia have jointly launched an “AI cloud super factory,” positioning themselves together in next-generation intelligent infrastructure and empowering industrial upgrading and efficiency gains. 

A growing number of practical cooperation cases fully demonstrate that China-U.S. cooperation in AI can break through barriers across technology, markets, and industries, unleashing innovation-driven momentum through mutual empowerment.

Healthy competition is an inevitable feature of China-U.S. engagement in AI. The core priority is keeping rivalry fair and constructive while upholding major-power responsibilities through cooperation.

At present, however, cooperation in AI still faces practical obstacles. Some in the United States continue to approach AI through the lens of zero-sum competition, politicizing, instrumentalizing, and weaponizing AI technologies while introducing restrictive measures such as investment controls, chip export restrictions, and cloud computing service regulations, thereby artificially erecting barriers to cooperation.

Such practices of “decoupling and severing supply chains” and building “small yards, high fences” run counter to the objective laws of technological development, undermine the legitimate rights and interests of businesses in both countries, and are harmful to coordinated development of the global AI industry.

In the face of suppression and containment, China remains firmly committed to safeguarding its right to development and advancing AI as an inclusive engine for global development.

The world does not want to see an “AI iron curtain” or a fractured global landscape split into isolated regional AI blocs. Ensuring that AI develops for good and benefits all humanity represents the greatest shared interest between China and the United States in this sector.

Looking ahead, hopes remain high that the United States will work with China to strengthen dialogue, properly manage competition, and expand cooperation, allowing AI to become a new frontier for China-U.S. cooperation and a strong catalyst for human progress, while helping both countries create a brighter intelligent future together.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)

By Wang Yunshan, Wu Jun, People’s Daily

Advancements in artificial intelligence have pushed computing power to the forefront as an essential core digital resource worldwide. One pressing challenge is how to enable computing resources across different regions to work together efficiently and be accessed on demand.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) outlines the need to further advance the East Data, West Computing initiative, build a multi-tier computing infrastructure system, and establish an integrated nationwide computing power network.

What exactly is a computing power network? And how is China turning this blueprint into tangible infrastructure network? Real-world applications across the country are already offering concrete answers

At the First People’s Hospital of Jingzhou in central China’s Hubei province, radiologist Zhang Liren uploaded computed tomography images into an AI-assisted diagnostic system. In less than 10 seconds, a preliminary assessment of a patient’s condition was generated.

Such remarkable speed gains rely on robust network support. China Mobile Hubei, the Hubei branch of wireless carrier China Mobile, recently unveiled its Lingban Computing Network platform, engineered to build a multi-level latency coverage system. 

It delivers a 1-millisecond latency for intra-city access, 5 milliseconds across the province, 7 milliseconds between provincial capital Wuhan and key cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and 10 milliseconds linking Wuhan to the nation’s eight core computing hubs.

Previously, computing tasks were sometimes processed locally and sometimes dispatched hundreds of kilometers away, resulting in delays that users simply had to endure.

China Mobile Hubei has deployed 27 municipal-level data centers and 42 operational or under-construction computing nodes across Hubei province. 

According to Gong Jian, head of a research institute under China Mobile Hubei, the company integrates edge computing resources from cities across the province while incorporating idle social computing resources under unified management. 

Paired with an intelligent task-scheduling platform, this enables AI startups to access fast computing services without massive upfront investment, Gong added.

The spatial distribution of 

China’s computing resources suffer from inherent geographic imbalance: eastern provinces host concentrated market demand yet face steep costs for new data center construction, while western regions boast abundant land and energy for server facilities but have far weaker local computing consumption. Meanwhile, computing demand fluctuates significantly across industries and time periods.

“Therefore, computing tasks need to be proactively assigned according to urgency, budgets, and chip requirements to determine where they should be executed,” said Zhang Huawei, product manager for China Mobile’s computing network scheduling platform.

Different tasks require different types of computing resources.

“To use a highway analogy, ambulances use emergency lanes while delivery trucks stay in regular lanes,” said Zhang Xianghong, head of the data infrastructure standards working group under the National Technical Committee 609 on Data Standardization Administration of China. 

“In practice, applications such as remote surgery occupy the equivalent of emergency lanes, whereas large-model training and film rendering can wait in line and utilize resources with less stringent latency requirements.”

According to Zhang, the integrated nationwide computing power network is essentially a form of digital infrastructure. Built on information network technologies, it enables highly integrated, large-scale scheduling and operation of computing resources nationwide.

“Put simply, it ensures that every computing task finds the most suitable lane,” Zhang added.

Beyond technological upgrades, building a unified national computing network also drives sweeping structural reform across China’s digital economy by reorganizing how computing power, raw data, communication networks and power supply resources are integrated and distributed.

The integrated nationwide computing power network represents not only technological innovation, but also a fundamental restructuring of how computing power, data, networks, electricity, and other resources are integrated and allocated.

Inside the monitoring system of a national integrated computing power network monitoring and scheduling test platform at the Pengcheng Laboratory in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province, real-time data on computing resources nationwide is displayed clearly on screen.

Deng Qing, director of the computing network ecosystem at Pengcheng Laboratory, said the monitoring system provides a clear picture of intelligent computing capacity and resource distribution across regions. 

Currently, the system covers the 10 major clusters within the eight computing hubs established under the East Data, West Computing initiative, as well as computing resources from certain non-hub regions.

At present, 1.37 million PFLOPS of intelligent computing capacity has been incorporated into the monitoring system, accounting for approximately 72 percent of China’s total intelligent computing capacity.

“The monitoring system serves as the eyes of the computing power network,” Deng explained. “It is the prerequisite for efficient scheduling, resource optimization, and informed decision-making. Since computing resources built on different architectures vary substantially, the first requirement is visibility. Only when integrated real-time monitoring provides data on distribution, workload, and utilization can resources be effectively scheduled and efficiently used.”

According to Guo Mingjun, director of the computing economy division at the State Information Center under China’s National Development and Reform Commission, one defining feature of the integrated nationwide computing power network is intensive development.

The objective is to promote large-scale and concentrated development of diverse computing resources, including general-purpose computing, intelligent computing, and supercomputing within national computing hubs.

By the end of March this year, intelligent computing capacity built within the eight national computing hubs of the East Data, West Computing initiative accounted for more than 80 percent of the national total, highlighting a trend of increasingly concentrated development.

For computing resources built on different architectures, operated by different institutions, and located in different regions to be recognized, managed, and utilized under a unified scheduling framework, standardized rules are essential.

Zhang noted that the National Technical Committee 609 on Data Standardization Administration of China has already released nine technical documents, largely establishing the standard framework for computing networks. Moving forward, these standards will continue to be refined based on practical experience to strengthen their authority and guiding value.

By Huang Xiaohui, People’s Daily

As countries around the world look toward returning humans to the Moon, Chinese researchers are exploring an unusual building material for future lunar bases: fibers made from lunar soil.

Recently, samples of these lunar-soil fibers were sent to the Chinese space station aboard a Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, where they will undergo exposure tests in the harsh conditions of outer space, including high vacuum, intense radiation and extreme temperature fluctuations.

The lunar-soil fiber was developed by a research team led by academician Zhu Meifang from the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Donghua University.

The fibers produced from lunar soil are as thin as human hair, said Cheng Yanhua, a researcher on the team. The basic principle itself is relatively straightforward: lunar soil is heated until it melts, formed into tiny droplets and then drawn into ultra-fine filaments.

Lunar soil shares similar chemical and mineral compositions with basalt and contains a variety of trace elements. Fibers made from basalt are widely applied in high-end equipment manufacturing.

It is not difficult to produce simulated lunar soil via precise scientific formulation. The real challenge lies in recreating the lunar environment on Earth. According to Cheng, drawing fibers in lunar environment is akin to making sugar figurines in a vacuum, which cannot be accomplished with conventional methods.

To tackle the problem, Zhu’s team began researching materials for extreme environments in 2016 and independently designed a specialized spinning system capable of simulating lunar high-vacuum and microgravity conditions.

The research made a major breakthrough after the Chang’e-5 mission returned lunar samples to Earth in 2020. Using just 0.5 grams of actual lunar soil, the team successfully produced continuous fibers about three meters long, each strand as fine as human hair.

In April 2025, the slender but remarkably durable lunar-soil fibers were displayed at the exhibition “20 Years of Chinese Lunar Exploration Program” at the National Museum of China. Several months later, in September 2025, the fully homegrown technology won a top award at the China International Industry Fair.

Researchers believe such technology could play an important role in future lunar exploration because transportation construction materials from Earth to the Moon is extremely expensive..

“In the future, these lunar-soil fibers could potentially be used to build tents directly on the Moon,” a team member said, adding that they may be woven into flexible structural materials or used to reinforce lunar concrete, much like steel bars in construction on Earth.

For now, however, the technology remains in the early experimental stage, and practical applications are still some distance away. The current experiment aboard the Chinese space station aims to determine whether the fibers can withstand the severe conditions of space over long periods. Every piece of data collected will help support future efforts to build sustainable human habitats on the Moon.