The era of artificial intelligence (AI) is quietly approaching. At the first Vancouver Web Summit hosted by the Global Web Summit, "artificial intelligence" undoubtedly became the hottest topic. What challenges and opportunities will the development of AI technology bring to human society? How do you view China's role in the global AI landscape? Global Network Summit founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave recently gave an interview to share his observations. The summary of the interview transcript is as follows: Reporter: What role does the Global Network Summit hope to play in exploring or promoting AI innovation and development? Kosgrave: On the opening night of the Vancouver Internet Summit, one of the speakers, Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor at New York University, refuted some of the viewpoints about AI, especially the exaggerated claims from some large corporations about the progress made in current models. In my opinion, the extensive discussion about AI inevitably carries marketing and hype colors. In the cycle of any new technology, people often get caught up in hype and sometimes go beyond reality. Marcus provided the opposite view. The purpose of the Global Network Summit is to establish meaningful connections, try to discover interesting companies and trends, help people in specific industries communicate in the network of technology ecosystems, and also hear interesting perspectives from speakers like Marcus. I really hope to hold an online summit in mainland China, but I must find a suitable city. I believe this will broaden the horizons of many European industry insiders. We can bring a large number of interesting people from all over the world to China. I believe that the opportunity Europe faces is to work more closely with China, which is inevitable. I also hope that not only online summits, but also other events can serve as a bridge to connect China with Europe or other regions of the world. Because we are trying to move towards a more integrated world, rather than a "Balkanized" (fragmented) world. Reporter: How do you view the current development speed of AI and Internet technology in China, and how do you evaluate China's role in the global AI landscape? Kosgrave: Seven years ago, I told the media in Hong Kong that China would dominate AI in the future. They thought it was ridiculous because they had never heard of Chinese AI companies at that time. I believe that determining the future technological window and potential dominant geographic regions depends on high-quality citations in research. That is, it depends on which universities, which researchers - and most importantly, where they come from - are producing the most important research results. At that time, Chinese universities had already dominated high-quality citations in the fields of AI and machine learning. I think this trend is inevitable. Not immediately, but over time, in the next decade starting from 2018, research in this field will begin to leave universities and enter the business field. These breakthroughs will be commercialized. Therefore, innovation mainly occurs within the university system, sometimes also from research laboratories of some technology companies, and then it is commercialized. Observing the high-quality citations published by Chinese researchers, you will find that China is accelerating its overtaking. More breakthroughs in this field have occurred in China. Looking at patents again, this is another indicator. In 2010, China still lagged significantly behind Europe and America in terms of patents in the fields of AI and machine learning. In 2017 and 2018, with commercial output, China's patents began to catch up with those of Europe and America. Currently, 60-70% of patents in the AI field come from entities in China. Who will continue to dominate AI? The answer is only China. Unfortunately, those who promote in the West now believe in their own propaganda. Eventually, enough Western political and business scholars will realize that in terms of innovation, Western systems are not as good as China's. But this is not the view of the majority in the West. I think the challenge for the West now is to study China's innovation system and learn what China is doing. Reporter: Some voices believe that China will become a "threat" to the West in the field of AI. What do you think? Kosgrave: Let me give you an example from Japan. In the early 1980s, Japanese car manufacturers surpassed the United States in innovation, with better, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient engine technology. So the United States claimed that Japan was threatening the United States and that the Japanese government was interfering in the automotive industry. Therefore, they imposed huge tariffs on Japanese car companies. This is very similar to now. In the late 1980s, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States believed that the best supercomputer manufacturer in the world at that time was NEC of Japan, and therefore signed a contract with it. But the White House intervened on the grounds of national security, stating that Japanese computers pose a threat to US national security. So NEC supercomputers have been banned. From a historical perspective, whenever the United States is eliminated from competition in a certain industry, they tend to shift the blame to national security, government intervention, and excessive subsidies, as if the US government has never rescued established airlines or car manufacturers, nor provided subsidies in many fields. It is now 2025, but the plot and narrative are very similar. The fact they cover up with language is that Chinese companies and universities have already emerged victorious in the competition. Reporter: Are you concerned that AI technology is leading human society into a "gray area" where technology is ahead of regulation and ethical thinking? Kosgrave: New technology or any other technology is not inherently neutral. It can be good or bad. The Western satellite positioning system GPS is not designed to deliver Thai style stir fried rice noodles or pizza to your doorstep, but to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles towards cities or specific areas. Today's automotive technology is surrounded by too many rules. It was a transformative technology a hundred years ago. Along the way, people have introduced regulations and tried to coexist with this incredible technology, but it still "kills" many people around the world. We try to mitigate its negative consequences by using seat belts, airbags, special braking systems, warning systems, and overtaking rules. Of course, when it comes to AI, I am confident that people will make every effort to standardize and improve this latest technology. Reporter: Are you concerned that AI may exacerbate global information asymmetry, technological divide, and other issues? Kosgrave: Not really. I do believe that AI and free AI have the potential to eliminate intermediaries in Western information systems. You can think that the West is currently maintained by a massive propaganda system. People's understanding of the world relies on them obtaining or receiving information through the incredible, massive, and complex propaganda machine or system of the West. As more and more people use non Western AI systems to understand what is happening in the world, Western propaganda systems will be challenged. For example, I asked ChatGPT (an AI tool from the United States) to explain how Western media operates, stating that it is based on "press freedom" and investigative journalism. Then I posed the same question to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI tool, which essentially presented Noam Chomsky's viewpoint and stated that Western media relies on the premise of "manufacturing consent". I personally think this is more accurate. What kind of world will my children grow up in when they no longer rely on the lens of Western media to understand how the world operates? This fascinates me. They are using the world's best AI systems, which are likely to come from China. And they are free. What will that bring? I think this is a very interesting question about (eliminating) inequality. As we enter a more multipolar world, the ability of a few countries to seize huge wealth from other parts of the world without participating in fair value exchange or fair trade among equal partners will weaken, and I am even more optimistic about this. A multipolar world is more balanced than the world we have lived in since at least World War II. Reporter: What is your biggest expectation for the development of AI? What is the biggest challenge it faces? Kosgrave: Universal and free. I hope that the best and most cutting-edge AI models can also be universally and freely used. This will be a good thing for the whole world. The biggest challenge now is to help the United States realize that they have "destroyed" (American chip giant) Nvidia. People have not yet realized this. Overall, the chip ban against China is the dumbest idea in history, as it essentially tells this country with a population of 1.4 billion: you need to build the entire supply chain at the 'Chinese speed' and do it better; When you start manufacturing components or chips, you will have the entire market, the most important market. (Liaoxin News Agency) Interviewee profile: Paddy Cosgrave, a well-known Irish Internet technology industry figure, founder and CEO of the Web Summit, and former ambassador of the European Innovation Commission of the European Commission. The Global Network Summit was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It is committed to hosting a series of world-class network technology industry events around the world, including the Lisbon Network Summit in Portugal, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Doha Network Summit in Qatar, and RISE Technology Summit in Hong Kong.