China Showcases AI Hardware as Export Controls Bite

China's World Artificial Intelligence Conference is set to feature major product releases, including Huawei Technologies' next-generation computing cluster and what the company describes as the world's first AI-agent phone, the South China Morning Post reported. The event shows how Beijing is concentrating on domestic AI capability as the technology competition with the United States intensifies.

Industry leaders in Hong Kong, meanwhile, urged the city to draft a focused five-year AI plan built around its competitive strengths and its ability to attract talent, rather than spreading its ambitions too widely, in a separate South China Morning Post account.

The push is a direct response to United States export controls that restrict Chinese access to the most advanced chips. Denied some foreign hardware, Chinese firms are building their own computing systems, which deepens the separation of the two countries' technology ecosystems.