https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkax5n/china-us-ai-arms-race-heats-up-as-chinese-startup-unveils-powerful-new-ai

A new Chinese artificial intelligence startup, spearheaded by one of the field’s foremost experts, catapulted itself onto the world stage this week when it released an open-source AI model that appears to outperform Meta’s own model in critical metrics, giving the country an early win in what the company's founder sees as a battle between the U.S. and China for AI supremacy. 

The company, called 01.AI, is the brainchild of CEO Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Google in China and co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Artificial Intelligence Council, who authored the bestseller AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, a 2018 book which argues that China is capable of overtaking the U.S. to be the world leader in AI technology. Lee reportedly only began assembling his team in March but has quickly hired more than 100 employees who come from both multinational companies and Chinese firms. 01.AI, which began operating in June, has already been valued at over $1 billion by its investors, which include Lee’s own venture firm, Sinovation Ventures, and Alibaba Cloud.