Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode's Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China and now CEO of Sinovation Ventures, announced on Monday that he's building a new AI company called Project AI 2.0 that will focus on developing ChatGPT-like apps, as well as an ecosystem for AI-powered productivity tools. Lee shared his thoughts on the latest AI trends, including the concepts of AI 1.0 and 2.0 on March 14, at Sinovation Ventures' headquarters in Beijing. He said he considers ChatGPT to be a major breakthrough in deep learning, driving AI into the 2.0 era. Why it matters: As a renowned AI expert and venture capitalist, Lee said he sees AI as providing an opportunity to reconstruct almost all existing applications, just as Microsoft redesigned Microsoft Office into Copilot, giving Word, Excel, and other mainstream productivity tools AI and generative capabilities.

US officials are considering new export restrictions on China in the fields of quantum computing and AI software, Bloomberg reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. Discussions are still at an early stage, according to the unnamed source, and there are no further details on what shape any potential bans might take. Major Chinese tech firms including Baidu and Alibaba have invested in quantum computing and released related products in recent years, interests which could take a direct hit if the US introduces restrictions. In terms of AI, major machine learning frameworks such as Google's TensorFlow and PyTorch are open-source and it is not immediately clear how the US would be able to place effective controls on them, but it is another indication of the Biden administration's intention to attempt to limit China's access to advanced computing technologies.

Large-scale commercial operation of highly autonomous vehicles (AVs) could become a reality "sooner than expected" in China, Baidu's CEO Robin Li said on Thursday at the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. "I think it would take a longer time to commercialize Level 3 autonomous vehicles, because there remain questions about who is liable in the case of accidents involving these vehicles," Li said (our translation). Level 4 vehicles, however, make it clear that the manufacturer or the owner, rather than the driver, is responsible in a crash, Li added. Level 4 refers to a fully autonomous system where vehicles travel from point A to point B without requiring any human intervention. In Level 3, also called the semi-autonomous level, the driver is still required to take over the vehicle in emergencies, according to definitions set by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

Is China pulling ahead of the US in AI? Not quite, argues Dieter Ernst of CIGI in a recent report entitled "Competing in artificial intelligence chips: China's challenge amid technology war." In addition to the hard engineering, Ernst reveals a social story of a global AI community on the verge of fracture. These new restrictions will likely bring the best out of some Chinese firms, while putting others out to pasture. All the while, basic research is likely to suffer worldwide as ties that bound the Chinese and western academic communities fray.

Chinese AI startups have raised at least $420 million this month, defying a steep drop in fundraising in China's tech sector amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Why it matters: China's AI firms have grown off the back the government's drive to become a leader in the technology by 2020 but haven't been immune to the outbreak of the flu-like virus. Details: Speech recognition firm AISpeech, AI chipmaker Intellifusion, and machine learning firm 4Paradigm have collectively raised $429 million since the beginning of April. Context: Despite signs of a recovery in investor sentiment, the Covid-19 outbreak will likely have a significant impact on China'a AI firms, and the tech sector as a whole. Christopher Udemans is a Shanghai-based technology reporter.

If you can't see the YouTube player above, try watching here instead. Baidu has released its annual ranking of the hottest search terms in technology for 2019. Artificial intelligence (AI) garnered more searches than any other tech phrase. "AI is going to open a new chapter of the society of the world that people try to understand ourselves better, rather than the outside world," said Alibaba founder Jack Ma in a discussion with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in August. China issued a plan for next-generation AI in 2017, pledging to turn the industry into a new growth engine.

Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has opened to the public its source code for an in-house machine-learning platform that it used to drive product recommendations during this year's Singles Day shopping festival. Why it matters: Alibaba has sharpened its focus on open-source software since 2011. The company's cloud division is a member of the Linux Foundation and is active in a number of open-source communities including the Apache Software Foundation. Details: Dubbed Alink, the platform offers a range of algorithm libraries that allow for processing live data as well as batched datasets, Alibaba Cloud said in a statement on Thursday. "The difference between Alink and the pure AI platforms like Tensorflow and PyTorch is that those focus more on the algorithms and the design of the models. But today, for machine learning models to train effectively, we need to have a high-quality connection to the big data. Alink provides us with a seamless connection between the AI algorithms and the big data distributed systems."

Shanghai-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Emotibot has closed its $45 million Series B, aiming to improve the emotion-sensing capabilities of robots in human-machine interaction. Why it matters: The company lists social media and gaming giant Tencent, video streaming firm iQiyi, and robot maker UBTech as its partners. Details: Emotibot's latest round was led by V Fund Management, Linfeng Capital, and an undisclosed strategic investor. Context: Emotibot focuses on building chatbots that are able to identify emotional responses in humans, which the company believes is the next step in the evolution of artificial intelligence.

National artificial intelligence (AI) plans, including those drafted by China, should promote international collaboration, not just permit it, according to Tom Mitchell, former dean of Carnegie Mellon University's computer science school. Why it matters: Mitchell, known as the father of machine learning, was speaking at the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Thursday. "What I think these national strategies need is a distinction that says for win-win applications the rational strategy for every country is not just to allow collaboration but actually to promote it. And to find ways to, for example, share medical data internationally, and share algorithms and the hard engineering work." Details: Mitchell said that AI applications in healthcare, education, and smart cities could benefit from researchers in different countries working together.

Shanghai has formed a RMB 500 million ($70 million) fund to boost its drone industry and lure drone makers to the city with subsidies and preferential policies. Why it matters: Shanghai aims to become a global tech powerhouse. The city has already laid out plans to become an artificial intelligence hub and has set its sights on becoming a world "e-sports capital." Details: Shanghai's Jinshan District has implemented 18 policies to attract businesses to the city, including covering up to 20% of a firm's budget to build research and development centers in the city. Context: Jinshan hopes to attract up to 100 domestic and international drone makers by 2021.