As economists in the rest of the world look at the billions being poured into the AI industry with their hands over their eyes, the fate of China’s AI industry may be a sign of things to come.
A report from Reuters suggests that the AI bubble in China “has already burst.” Or it might be more apt to say that it shriveled like a rapidly deflating balloon: over the past four months, Reuters notes, the country’s STAR50 index of AI and semiconductor companies collapsed by 40 percent, wiping out $480 billion in market value. That is not a typo.
“The stock market later evolved into a speculative crazy bull,” Beijing-based fund manager Dong Baozhen told Reuters. “And now we see the bubble bursting.”
Shares of Unitree, China’s buzzy robotics company, have halved since the company went public in a much-hyped IPO in August, the reporting noted. The chipmaker CXMT, meanwhile, has lost more than a quarter of its value over the past month.
