Wang called OpenClaw “the AI era’s answer for ordinary people”.<\/p>\n
Chinese tech giants seemed to agree because they were releasing apps built on OpenClaw. From the southern tech hub of Shenzhen to the capital of Beijing, hundreds of people – from secondary school students to retirees – were lining up outside the headquarters of Tencent and Baidu for free customised versions.<\/p>\n
Many were curious to find out more about the “lobsters”. Some users online said they used them to invest in stocks, claiming their “lobsters” analysed the best times to buy and sell, and even did the deed, despite the risk of costly errors. Others said the tools were great for multi-tasking and saving time.<\/p>\n
Famous comedian and author Li Dan told millions of his followers on Douyin that he was so immersed in OpenClaw that he talked to his lobster in his dreams. Fu Sheng, chief executive of Cheetah Mobile, relentlessly shared how he “raised his lobster” on social media – a phrase users adopted to describe training the assistant for their requirements.<\/p>\n
China’s AI moment has been in the making for some time.<\/p>\n
When the Chinese app DeepSeek burst onto the AI scene early last year, it seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise. It was also an open-source platform, developed by home-grown engineers from elite Chinese universities. And it came on the back of years of investments in developing crucial technology, including AI – which has only continued in the wake of DeepSeek’s success.<\/p>\n
What DeepSeek showed was the Chinese entrepreneurial appetite for seeking out opportunities in research and innovation, despite curbs on the import of advanced tech. And it also proved how eagerly people were willing to adopt open-source platforms.<\/p>\n
So the stage was set for OpenClaw.<\/p>\n
Its popularity did not escape the Chinese government. Several counties and cities provided incentives to encourage entrepreneurs to apply OpenClaw in their businesses – the eastern city of Wuxi offered up to five million yuan ($726,000; \u00a3549,000) for manufacturing-related applications, such as robots.<\/p>\n
“Everyone in China knows that the government sets the pace, and the government tells you where the opportunities are,” said Rui Ma, founder of the Tech Buzz China newsletter. “It’s practical for most people. That’s probably a better plan, to just follow the government directive than to really try to figure it out on your own.”<\/p>\n
Once Beijing signals its priorities, the market follows. In the past few years, tech companies – large and small – have rushed into the AI race, supported by subsidised office space, cash rewards and loans.<\/p>\n
From manufacturing to transport, healthcare to household electronics, companies are seeking to integrate AI into their products and operations. “That’s the spirit of AI Plus,” Chang says, referring to China’s national strategy to integrate AI across industries. “Take AI, apply it everywhere.”<\/p>\n
The competition is fierce. In what Chinese media have dubbed the “Hundred Model War”, more than 100 AI models have emerged since 2023, with only 10 still in contention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wang called OpenClaw “the AI era’s answer for ordinary people”. Chinese tech giants seemed to agree because they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-514997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}