China aims to dominate the artificial intelligence sector, a goal complicated by the trade standoff with Washington that could further deprive Chinese industry of certain key technologies.

The world’s two leading economies are locked in an escalating tit-for-tat trade battle triggered by US President Donald Trump’s new levies on Chinese goods, which have reached 145% on many products.

Beijing has responded with new 125% duties on imports from the US.

In this context, Xi called for “continuing to strengthen basic research, focusing our efforts on overcoming challenges in key technologies such as advanced chips and core software, and building an autonomous AI system”, according to Xinhua news agency.

Xi made the remarks during a quarterly meeting of the Politburo, the inner circle of China’s top leaders.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, generative AI models have proliferated in the US and China.

Chinese start-up DeepSeek shook up the AI world in January with its R1 chatbot, matching the performance of its US competitors at a lower cost.

But Xi acknowledged yesterday that the Chinese industry still had “gaps”.

It was “essential” to “promote self-reliance” in the field, he added.

Political support was essential to achieve this, Xi stressed, citing in particular “a combination of policies such as intellectual property rights, taxation, public procurement, and the opening up of infrastructure”.