Nan Zhong — Co-Founder & President, Arise AI
Building AI ventures and teams across China and Southeast Asia.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/znzhongnan/
Five Key Takeaways from Nan Zhong
Here are five key statements from our conversation on China, AI and the future of European industry.
“The Chinese are optimizing for deployment, for real interactions between the model and real-world applications. Whereas Americans are optimizing for the ceiling, for the path to AGI.”
— Nan Zhong, 02:22
Nan argues that one of China’s key advantages is the speed at which AI is being deployed in real-world environments — from factory floors and power grids to call centers and government applications.
“If anyone wants to build a robot fast, you can’t get around Shenzhen.”
— Nan Zhong, 15:54
China’s advantage in robotics is not just about AI models. It is also about the strength, density and speed of its manufacturing and robotics supply chain.
“It’s not only beneficial, but also necessary for Europe to work with Chinese partners.”
— Nan Zhong, 21:39
Nan believes Europe needs to acknowledge that it is falling behind in AI and should seriously explore Chinese technology partnerships rather than relying predominantly on the United States.
“China is the only other game in town.”
— Nan Zhong, 22:57
In particular, Nan sees Chinese open-source and open-weight AI as an opportunity for Europe to diversify its technology dependencies while maintaining greater control over models, infrastructure and data.
“It really sometimes worries me that in 10, 20 years, what’s going to happen to these once very formidable and profitable European manufacturing industries.”
— Nan Zhong, 20:24
His concern goes beyond AI itself. China combines AI deployment with powerful supply chains, rapid iteration, manufacturing execution and intense domestic competition — putting increasing pressure on traditional European industrial strengths.
