A recent online comparison claimed China's AI has "gone astray" — citing that 55% of China's token consumption flows to AI short dramas and video generation versus 58% in the U.S. to coding, R&D and enterprise automation — but People's Daily pushed back on October 21, calling the simplistic framing flawed.
The paper noted that in multimodal models, video generation is naturally token-heavy, so judging a nation's AI by call "face value" misleads; token flow reflects market "sales revenue," not total R&D input or strategic direction. China's AI has always anchored on national needs and public welfare, with "good steel used on the blade."
On policy, the 15th Five-Year Plan ties AI to science, industry, culture and governance, and the State Council's first AI program lists "AI + science" as the top action; the recent opinion on new quality productive forces calls for AI-led research-paradigm change. On investment, the "computing-power network" is one of six national networks, with the first 100,000-card super-intelligent pool online. On results, AI runs through "artificial sun" R&D and the space station, compressing drug discovery cycles.
The paper argued that entertainment applications are not mere "fireworks" — next-gen video models aid industrial training and autonomous-driving simulation. China's application-oriented model, backed by a huge market and complete industrial system, is precisely its advantage and a seedbed for disruptive innovation.
Source: People's Daily / The Beijing News
