Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping human civilization through a chain reaction of "technological breakthroughs, industrial integration, and social reconstruction". From basic research to scenario implementation, from laboratory innovation to global governance, AI has evolved from a single technological tool to a core engine driving economic, social, and cultural change. In March 2025, Qi Guojun, an outstanding scientist of the International Computer Association, returned to China from the United States to work and newly established the "MAPLE Laboratory" at West Lake University. How to interpret the ecological differences in artificial intelligence research between China and foreign countries? How will the future development of artificial intelligence cross the boundaries of technology and ethics? Is the global dialogue of artificial intelligence competition or symbiosis? Qi Guojun recently gave an exclusive interview to Q&A and provided an interpretation on this matter. The summary of the interview transcript is as follows: Reporter: Why did you choose to return to China? Qi Guojun: Mainly considering personal career development and the overall environment. Everyone has different career cycles and stages, and their needs for matching support resources and the scenarios they can utilize vary. Based on my own experience, I believe that there are still some fundamental issues that need to be addressed in the field of AI. With the development and iteration of AI basic models, more important achievements and intellectual property influence will emerge in commercial scenarios. Based on my work experience in the industrial and corporate sectors in the United States, and considering my personal development and the integration of industry and academia, I believe that returning to China for development would be more suitable. In addition, from a global perspective, China and the United States can provide a good platform for the development of AI. China has advantages in market size, population base, ecological environment, and many favorable conditions in application scenarios, national support, and the generation of products with great commercial value and potential. However, top American companies such as Microsoft, Meta, Google, etc. have strong dominance in the ecosystem, and the Matthew effect is evident. New enterprises or individuals find it difficult to stand out in their market coverage, leading to intense competitive pressure. On November 9, 2022 local time, people took photos at Meta's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, USA. Reporter Liu Guanguan from China News Service: How to interpret the ecological differences in artificial intelligence research between China and foreign countries? Qi Guojun: The commercialization orientation of the United States is obvious. The United States is more led by commercial organizations in scientific research, especially in the field of AI, where large companies invest more than the federal government. Although the federal government has plans and R&D institutions leading project guidance, the overall focus is on commercial organizations. The AI field has gone through multiple cycles. From 2012 to 2022, American commercialization organizations began by funding technology research and gradually sought commercialization pathways. From technological research to exploring scalability, and then to commercialization and application research, American companies invest more in technological research. Especially in terms of research investment in universities, besides the National Science Foundation of the United States, the US military invests more. The early Internet construction in the United States was funded by the military, and many colleges and universities were funded by such government agencies. In addition, cooperation between universities and enterprises often focuses on talent and technology research. What is particularly different is that American venture capital, especially Silicon Valley venture capital, provides significant funding for early-stage AI projects. Although it is currently in a saturated investment state, investors are willing to invest even if they know that investing in 100 projects may only result in a few successes. In China, top IT companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, etc. have invested heavily in the AI field. At the same time, the national level provides a lot of support, including goal setting, infrastructure construction, and overall planning. There are also venture capital investments in China, but due to the constraints of chips and basic computing power, the investment cost is high. Therefore, more attention is paid to application based investments that can quickly generate commercial loops, and innovative enterprises focus more on the application process. In addition, there are differences between China and the United States in terms of effective methods for venture capital exit, such as buybacks, which need to be further improved. On July 26, 2025, the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference opened in Shanghai. The conference showcased over 3000 cutting-edge exhibits and more than 100 "global debut" and "China debut" new products, setting a record for the largest scale in history. The picture shows Qinglong robot demonstrating logistics sorting. Reporter Tian Yuhao from China News Service: How will the future development of artificial intelligence cross the boundaries of technology and ethics? Qi Guojun: Currently, there is no sufficient evidence or scientific consensus to suggest that AI will awaken and generate self-awareness, which is mostly based on science fiction speculation. However, the development of AI does bring new challenges, but the development of new technologies usually faces similar problems, such as piracy and bad information dissemination in the process of Internet technology development. In my opinion, the development of AI technology has a much greater positive impact on society as a whole than a negative impact. It has great value in terms of productivity development, application scenario expansion, employment category creation, and industrial structure optimization, and many positive cases have emerged. For example, AI is widely applied in the customer service industry, improving labor productivity. Although it brings pressure to employment, it also creates new positions with higher salaries, such as in the data industry; In creative industries such as digital humans, animation production, and art production, AI has replaced over 90% of repetitive labor, and the advertising and data processing related industries have also undergone significant changes. On March 29, 2024, in Chengdu, Sichuan, at the 11th China Online Audiovisual Conference, virtual digital humans appeared in the exhibition area. Wang Lei, a reporter from China News Service, looks forward to the future. AI will play a great role in improving labor productivity in all industries. Similar to the first stage of Internet development, it will first improve labor productivity. In the future, it may transition to the emergence stage of new enterprises with AI as the ecology. I anticipate the emergence of large AI native enterprises within the next 5 years, which may have a significant impact on the economy for the next 20-30 years. Reporter: Is the global dialogue of artificial intelligence competition or symbiosis? Qi Guojun: I believe that in the future global dialogue of artificial intelligence, there will be both competition and symbiosis, but symbiosis is greater than competition. Speed competition and open competition are crucial in the field of AI. In terms of speed competition, AI industry has something in common with the Internet industry. It is difficult to monopolize technology for a long time because of frequent technical exchanges. The real advantage lies in economies of scale, and the competition lies in speed and openness. Whoever can run faster will attract more users, obtain more data, iterate the model faster and better, and form positive feedback, known as the flywheel effect. Once the flywheel rotates, its scale and influence will continue to expand. If the model is only used on a small scale and cannot attract more users to form a commercial closed loop, data and users cannot grow, and it is difficult to understand more user intentions and usage scenarios, and the model cannot do better. So the development of AI needs to move towards greater openness, attract more users to use it, and form positive feedback. This is also an open competition for AI. However, in my opinion, successful Internet and IT enterprises must be global or at least have transnational influence, which is the case for both Chinese and American Internet and IT enterprises. In this process, all parties promote each other and form a symbiotic relationship. For example, cooperation can be carried out in data governance, AI ethical norms, and other areas. When AI has a huge impact, it will affect the real economy and daily life, and its positive effects will spill over globally, and technology will also be shared. Academic exchange promotes symbiosis. The AI industry is extremely open, with a large number of new technologies published in academic journals, conferences, and publicly available preprint pages through academic papers. Through academic exchanges, everyone promotes knowledge dissemination and shares new technological ideas. Like this year, DeepSeek announced the open-source MLA decoding core FlashMLA, DeepEP code repository, and more. Its new ideas and algorithms quickly spread online, and American companies also borrowed and used them. (Xinhua News Agency) Interviewee profile: Qi Guojun, graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China with a major in Automation in 2005; Obtained a doctoral degree in Automation from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2009; In 2013, he obtained a Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in the United States. He has served as a researcher at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Chief AI Scientist at Huawei Research Center in the United States. At the age of 39, he was awarded the titles of IEEE Fellow and ACM Distinguished Scientist by the International Association of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.