(Yicai) March 26 -- China's artificial intelligence-related venture capital investment is much lower than that of the United States, but this is not entirely bad news for the Asian country, according to a founding managing partner of Qiming Venture Partners.

AI will be the most significant investment opportunity over the next decade, Duane Kuang said during the two-day China Development Forum, a key annual international business conference in Beijing that ended March 24. Companies and VC funds in China can adopt a more rational approach to evaluating appropriate investment sizes, so the gap with the US is not necessarily negative, he noted.

US venture capital investment in AI topped USD76 billion last year, up from USD40 billion in 2023, according to CB Insights. In comparison, the figure in China stood at USD14 billion last year, up from around USD10.5 billion the year before, Zero2IPO Research data showed.

Several US tech giants have announced plans for significant AI investments this year, with Amazon planning to spend USD100 billion, Microsoft USD80 billion, Google USD75 billion, and Meta USD65 billion. In addition, ChatGPT developer OpenAI intends to invest USD500 billion in collaboration with Japan's SoftBank Group and Oracle's Stargate Project over the next four years.

Chinese internet giants have disclosed or are speculated to invest significantly less. Alibaba Group Holding plans to spend CNY380 billion (USD52 billion) over the next three years, while market estimates suggest TikTok owner ByteDance will allocate about USD20 billion a year and Tencent Holdings around USD15 billion.

The figures in China pale compared to the commitments of US tech firms, Kuang pointed out.

The global success of Chinese startup DeepSeek has prompted reassessments of AI infrastructure investment needs. However, regardless of evaluations, China's AI sector still faces a significant investment gap and is far from overheating.

"As foundational models such as DeepSeek-R1 mature and costs decline, AI applications in China should boom this year," Kuang predicted.

Editor: Martin Kadiev