China poaches more AI talent from the U.S. as it eyes the next 'super-app'

Key points

• BEIJING — A former OpenAI researcher is now chief AI scientist for Tencent in China, and wants to build artificial general intelligence.
• It's a sign of a shift in the U.S.-China tech race.
• AI with human-level or above capabilities (AGI) has long been the goal of U.S. companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet, which acquired British startup DeepMind.
• Chinese companies rushing to catch up on AI and facing U.S. chip controls have instead focused on ways to use the technology in applications from factories to consumer electronics.
• Baidu CEO Robin Li previously predicted it would take until at least 2034 to achieve AGI, in contrast to Elon Musk's 2026 forecast at the time.