Science funding call provides insight into China's AI priorities

The National Natural Science Foundation of China issued its annual call for project proposals. The call indicates that China is prioritizing the application of artificial intelligence in scientific discovery. Policymakers see integrating AI with the real world as a means to advance scientific and technological frontiers and position the country at the global forefront. Leading Chinese AI thinkers view scientific discovery as an ideal testbed for artificial general intelligence. Shanghai AI Lab Director Zhou Bowen stated that scientific abilities will be AGI's core. He believes one prerequisite of AGI will be its ability to do science and that his generation will witness this breakthrough. In its proposals for the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan, the CCP said that China should lead a shift in scientific research with AI. Roughly half of the project categories on the NSFC list align with this aspiration. One category focuses on using generative AI to automate the design of complex fusion reactors. Another seeks to build a design platform for biological components tolerant to extreme environments to address challenges in biomanufacturing. The sub-program name, explainable and general-purpose next-generation AI methods, suggests a connection to the next-generation AI megaproject. Project funding ranges between 240,000 and 600,000 euros. New projects receive funding each year as part of a systematic, long-term effort. Frontier research labs across China are building large models and compute clusters to support scientific research. Chinese scientists are developing AI models that can control plasma during nuclear fusion, map the universe, and autonomously derive physics principles. Rebecca Arcesati, lead analyst at MERICS, said the scale and speed of China's efforts to accelerate scientific discovery through AI technology would be unthinkable in Europe. She described this as a close race between China and the United States, with China advancing ahead by several metrics due to consistent investment in research, talent cultivation, and large-scale infrastructures.