Can AI give China the upper hand to surpass the US and become the world’s top economy after ChatGPT changed the game?

When the San Francisco-based OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT to the market in November, hailed as the so-called iPhone moment for artificial intelligence (AI), it cast a shadow across the Pacific.

China’s internet giants, though, have been quick on the uptake. Baidu launched its Ernie bot in March followed by Alibaba Cloud and Kunlun’s Tiangong in April. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.