Investor Says China’s AI Industry Excels in Hardware but Lacks Software Originality

Delphi Ventures co-founder José Maria Macedo said his firsthand review of China’s AI ecosystem showed that its strengths stem from world-class hardware engineering talent and a comprehensive supply chain, enabling companies to integrate components quickly and scale up mass production. However, he said its software and business models tend to iterate on existing products and lack original “zero-to-one” entrepreneurs, potentially limiting the industry’s long-term competitiveness.

After recently completing a two-week visit to China, Macedo said the country had a high concentration of top talent but had yet to produce an original software company comparable to OpenAI. He also warned of a possible bubble in AI startup valuations and questioned how close humanoid robots were to large-scale commercialization. Reports did not disclose the dates of his visit, company valuation figures or a mass-production timeline.