Over the past decade or so, China's internet and artificial intelligence industries have grown rapidly. Alongside that growth, a governance system built around platforms, content, data, algorithms and industrial development has been established and has kept running ever since. This talk traces that system back to how contemporary China's institutions came into being, in an attempt to understand the long-run institutional foundations on which governance rests. It then follows the establishment and development of internet governance, up to today's policies and regulations supporting AI, and goes on to ask how central institutions and competition between localities shape the way the AI industry develops.

The talk is given by Andy, a PhD student at a university in China with both academic and industry experience. He hopes to bring institutional history together with present-day observation, and to think through China's internet and AI — how they have developed, and how they are governed — with everyone in the room.