China’s AI start-up funding triples to US$16b in first quarter amid bets on LLMs, robotics

AI Summary

China's artificial intelligence startups have seen an impressive surge in funding, tripling to around $16 billion in the first quarter, driven by interest in large language models and robotics. This growth signals increasing optimism in China's tech sector.

Funding for China’s artificial-intelligence-related start-ups jumped nearly threefold year on year in the first quarter, as investors poured capital into large language models (LLMs) and embodied AI amid growing optimism over the country’s technology ecosystem. AI-related start-ups secured more than 110 billion yuan (US$16.2 billion) in the first three months of the year, representing a 185 per cent surge from the same period last year, according to data released on Thursday by Beijing-based...