The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that when Microsoft-backed OpenAI blocked China's access to its artificial intelligence systems last July, Chinese coders pivoted to open-source alternatives, primarily relying on Meta's technology. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe reports that since then, Chinese companies have developed their own open-source AI systems that are now among the world's top performers. China is rapidly catching up to the U.S. in the race to develop AI technologies. This is the result of a decade of strategic investment by the Chinese government. Rand researcher Kyle Chan says, "China is applying state support across the entire AI tech stack, from chips and data centres down to energy." Over the past decade, Beijing has encouraged Chinese companies to develop manufacturing capabilities in high-tech industries previously reliant on imports. China pushed that industrial policy approach as three presidential administrations in Washington tried to hold back its AI advances, including restricting sales of chips made by Nvidia. Google and Meta have spent billions on data centres. But in China, it is the government that has played a major role in financing AI infrastructure and hardware.