China’s tech giants including Baidu, Alibaba and NetEase are racing to match the west’s recent developments in artificial intelligence, touting projects that they hope will achieve the same buzz created by the release of ChatGPT.After months of announcing cost-cutting and lay-offs, big groups are now optimistically announcing investment plans to rival OpenAI’s chatbot, while trademark trolls are lining up to claim words related to ChatGPT’s achievements.

Zhou Hongyi, head of internet security company Qihoo 360, characterised ChatGPT, a program that produces realistic text answers to questions posed by humans, as the start of the artificial intelligence revolution. “It has shortcomings but also unlimited potential,” he said in a talk-show discussion last week.

The race to match ChatGPT comes as the China tech groups have spent the better part of two years reeling from regulatory attacks and fighting for growth amid the zero-Covid induced slowdown.