China's AI Landscape Curriculum
Week 1: Introduction & China Foundations

Introduction: Studying the PRC as a Tech Power

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IN THIS LESSON

Studying the PRC as a global tech power

To understand the global AI development landscape, one must understand Chinas role in it (and vice versa). This week introduces some key background concepts on studying the PRC (People’s Republic of China), its governance, and its position as a global technology power.

  • China watching in the ‘New Era’: A guide (Council on Geostrategy, 2022)

    (20 minutes)

    This explainer consists of the author’s views and experience of ‘China watching’ spread over four decades. It is meant as a practical guide, mainly, but not exclusively, with government officials in mind. It looks at the basic framework of knowledge which needs to be already in place; what needs to be read; advice on how to read material; and caution against some traps. 

  • How does the Chinese Communist Party operate? (South China Morning Post, 2021) (10 minutes)

    Provides a very basic overview of the party-state institutions. It does not explain how policy-making/enforcement works in practice.

    China Primer: China’s Political System (US Congressional Research Service, 2025) (15 minutes)

    Useful resource on the structure of China’s party-state, introducing select features of the PRC political system. 

  • The AI Triad and What It Means for National Security Strategy (CSET , 2020) (20 minutes)

    • Read the Executive Summary

    • Read Part 2

    Introduces a framework for understanding the main inputs to machine learning called the "AI Triad", consisting of algorithms, data, and compute. This framework will help guide our tour of China’s domestic AI development capacity landscape.

    Additionally, look over the following terms & definitions, as written by AI education org BlueDot Impact. You don’t need to know these deeply, but these are some common technical vocabulary terms in AI development discussions, so it’s good to have some familiarity. (5 minutes)

    Definitions:

    • FLOP: a single basic mathematical operation (like addition or multiplication) that a computer performs. The total number of FLOP is a measure of computational work done during AI training.

    • Compute efficiency is a measure of how “good” an AI model you get with a given financial investment.

      • E.g. if OpenAI spends $500M on compute to train their next AI model, how "good" will it be?

    • Hardware price-performance measures the amount of computational resources (FLOP) available for a given financial investment.

      • E.g. how many FLOP would OpenAI get with a $500M investment into NVIDIA H200 AI chips running for 1 month?

      • This is improving at ~1.4x/year (i.e. you get 1.4x more FLOP per $ each year) due to Moore's Law.

    • Algorithmic efficiency measures how “good” of an AI model you get with a given number of FLOP.

      • E.g. if OpenAI run their NVIDIA H200 chips for 1 month training an AI model (~10^26 FLOP), how “good” will that AI model be?

      • This is improving at ~3x/year (i.e. you need 3x less FLOP to achieve the same capability each year).

    • Compute efficiency (Capability/$) = Hardware price-performance (FLOP/$) × Algorithmic efficiency (Capability/FLOP)

      • This is improving at ~4x/year (i.e. you need 4x less $ to achieve the same capability each year)

  • The Tech Edge (CSIS, 2026) (15 minutes)

    The Tech Edge Project is the CSIS Economic Security and Technology (EST) Department’s flagship initiative on U.S.–China technology competition. It introduces a new framework for assessing the ecosystem drivers that shape long-term technology leadership—not just who leads today, but who is positioned to win over time.

    China’s High-Tech Drive in 10 Charts (CSIS, 2026) (15 minutes)

    Over the past few decades, China’s high-tech drive has made enormous yet uneven progress, both in general and within specific industries. These advances have directly translated into enhanced international power and influence for China. The United States and like-minded countries need to respond pragmatically to maximize the opportunities and minimize the risks resulting from these developments. This piece illustrates the changes in China’s dominance across various high-tech sectors in 10 intuitive charts.

    China Is Rapidly Becoming a Leading Innovator in Advanced Industries (ITIF, 2024) (20 minutes)

    Read only:

    • Key Takeaways

    • Introduction

    • "China's Dream: Techno-Economic Leadership"

    • Conclusion

    “If China can develop new-to-the-world innovations ahead of, or at the nearly the same time as, the United States and allied nations, its potential to displace U.S. (and allied) technology-based companies and capabilities becomes much more likely, especially because China benefits from significant economies of scale and a government laser focused on global best-in-class science and technology policy for competitiveness.”

  • What Does China Want? (International Security, 2025) (10 minutes)

    “Our findings indicate that China is a status quo power concerned with regime stability and is more inwardly focused than externally oriented. China's aims are unambiguous, enduring, and limited: It cares about its borders, sovereignty, and foreign economic relations. China's main concerns are almost all regional and related to parts of China that the rest of the region has agreed are Chinese—Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Our argument has three main implications…”