ChinAI #302: China AI Talent Check-in
Greetings from a world where…
ChinAI doesn’t exist without international education programs like the Critical Language Scholarship and the Fulbright. The CLS was the first study abroad program I applied for as a University of Iowa student, and it opened the door to other study and research abroad experiences through programs like the Boren Scholarship. Please join this NAFSA (association of international educators) campaign to urge Congress to restore vital international education and exchange funding! Full disclosure: my wife works on the Fulbright program.
…As always, the searchable archive of all past issues is here. Please please subscribe here to support ChinAI under a Guardian/Wikipedia-style tipping model (everyone gets the same content but those who can pay support access for all AND compensation for awesome ChinAI contributors).
Feature Translation: AI Talent Report from Liepin Big Data Research Institute
Context: Back when I wrote my “Deciphering China’s AI Dream” report, I drew on a 2017 Chinese-language LinkedIn white paper. Now, LinkedIn has shut down its Chinese platform. In its place, Liepin [猎聘] and competitors such as Boss Zhipin have become the leading job board platforms, and their posting and recruitment data provide insights on China’s talent landscape. This week’s translation breaks down data from the “2025 AI Technical Talent Supply and Demand Insights Report”, published by Liepin Big Data Research Institute.
Key Takeaways: China’s AI talent shortage is only intensifying. China’s AI talent base has increased over the past year (6.53% year-on-year growth compared with the previous year, February 2023-January 2024).
Liepin derived a talent shortage index (TSI) in the AI domain, calculated by the ratio of effective talent demand to effective talent recruitment. In January 2025, the TSI reached 3.24 (anything over 1 means that there is a shortage of talent). By comparison, when Liepin did the same exercise in February 2023, the TSI was 1.60.
High salaries are another indicator of the strong demand for AI technical talent. On Liepin, 31% of AI job postings boast an annual salary > 500,000 RMB. By comparison, among all job postings on Liepin, only 5% of positions have an annual salary > 500,000 RMB.
The distribution of China’s AI talent is changing. Two important trends are a younger age structure and different industries that are driving demand for AI talent.
According to report’s talent profile data (screenshot below), 38 percent of Chinese AI technical talent is in the 25-30 age range, which is the largest age bracket.
The industries with the strongest demand for AI technical talent are still the usual suspects: the Internet industry, semiconductors, and computer software. However, the industries with the strongest year-on-year growth in demand for AI technical talent are more interesting: the home appliance industry, communication equipment, smart hardware, and new energy.
One additional indicator that I’ll be following for future reference: 48% of AI technical talent graduated from 985/211 schools (i.e., the 100 or so top tier Chinese universities). In the context of my GPT diffusion argument, a wider base of institutions that cultivate AI engineering talent is essential, so it’ll be interesting to see if that 48% number will decrease in the future.
FULL TRANSLATION: AI Talent Report from Liepin Big Data Research Institute
ChinAI Links (Four to Forward)
Three quick book plugs
The ‘Spy Sheikh’ Taking the AI World by Storm: Eliot Brown and Berber Jin’s WSJ article on UAE national security adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan’s preoccupation with AI, featuring an anecdote about UAE embassy folks knocking on my office door because they weren’t able to find a copy of my book anywhere in a DC book store (which I guess is both a compliment and a diss).
Book Talk at Microsoft Center Brussels: I’ll be in Brussels on March 13th to give a talk on my book, moderated by Silke Wettach, EU correspondent for Wirtschaftswoche (German business weekly).
Substack Live chat on “Making Chinese AI Work for the US” with Azeem Azhar, who writes Exponential View. I joined Azeem for my first Substack Live where we touched on AI diffusion and third-party deployments of DeepSeek.
Should-read: DeepSeek spreads across China with Beijing’s backing
Great reporting by Eleanor Olcutt and Wenjie Ding in FT. On the one hand: “All the major cloud service providers, at least six car manufacturers, several local governments, a number of hospitals and a handful of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have moved to deploy DeepSeek.”
On the other hand: “Several industry insiders cautioned against taking all the announcements at face value, as some companies were trying to capture investor enthusiasm around DeepSeek without meaningfully deploying its models. Another doctor described a move to deploy DeepSeek last week at a hospital in eastern Zhejiang as a ‘publicity stunt’.”
Thank you for reading and engaging.
These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.
Check out the archive of all past issues here & please subscribe here to support ChinAI under a Guardian/Wikipedia-style tipping model (everyone gets the same content but those who can pay for a subscription will support access for all).
Also! Listen to narrations of the ChinAI Newsletter in podcast format here.