February 21st, 2025 by financetwitter
While countries like the U.S. is declaring tariffs war and trying to end the Ukraine War, and countries like Malaysia continues to protect hate preacher Zakir Naik and busy promoting religious radicalization, China is charging ahead to dominate a new global economy – Artificial Intelligence (AI) – which could worth a staggering US$15.7 trillion in 2030, according to PwC.
However, the Middle Kingdom also faces a new problem – shortage of Artificial Intelligence talents. From start-ups like DeepSeek to industry giants such as ByteDance, top Chinese technology companies are hunting – even poaching – people for jobs in AI. The lack of supply is so serious that headhunters have to recruit top AI talent from overseas, including the U.S., Europe and Singapore.
Following the global success of China’s newest AI darling DeepSeek, there have been a surge in interest of skilled AI workers. Job applications for AI engineers rose 69.6% in the first week after China’s spring recruitment season kicked off in February 4. Even AI-related sectors such as the computer hardware industry saw more job openings for technical talent like engineers for research on humanoid robots.
Sure, AI still cannot predict winning lottery numbers, even though there has been a spike in gamblers trying to use AI technology as a prediction machine. But the mismatch between AI talent demand and supply has created a new goldmine – AI-related job openings. Besides offering huge salary to entice the existing talent, some companies have to resort to stealing talents from rival companies.
The demand for AI talent in China has been skyrocketing since American AI company OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released in late 2022. Even though Chinese universities are investing in training AI talent, in order to do cutting-edge research and development (R&D), candidates typically need to have PhDs. Therefore, the output of AI-trained PhD holders is relatively low.
But even back in 2020 before ChatGPT was unleashed, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China reported that the country faced a shortage of more than five million AI professionals, with only one qualified person for every 10 AI jobs. If the talent shortfall fails to get “urgent priority” and China does not “scale up talent production”, the talent gap will exceed 10 million by 2025.
Since 2024, domestic generative video AI models have experienced explosive growth in China. New job roles have emerged, such as AI content creators, AI director assistants, and AI scriptwriters. In 2024 alone, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security introduced 19 new professions, including generative AI systems operator.
Already, more than 500 universities and colleges in China have rolled out an AI major since 2018, a year after Beijing unveiled its plan to become the world leader in AI. Still, the only way Chinese tech companies could compete for talent shortage is with attractive salaries. Graduates with PhDs could command an annual salary of between 800,000 yuan (US$110,000) and one million yuan (US$140,000).
The highest salary offered to top talent was between 10 million yuan (US$1.1 million) and 20 million yuan (US$2.2 million) per year. DeepSeek’s highest offer is a monthly salary of between 80,000 yuan and 110,000 yuan, which, coupled with the company’s 14-month pay system, could mean an annual income of up to 1.54 million yuan (US$212,000) for deep learning researchers.
At the end of his internship at Nvidia in 2023, Zizheng Pan, a young artificial-intelligence researcher from China, faced a critical decision – stay in Silicon Valley with the world’s leading chip designers or return home to join DeepSeek, then a little-known startup in eastern China. Pan chose DeepSeek without much hesitation, suggesting that talents do not necessarily attract to America.
Of course, less than two years after Pan joined DeepSeek, the Chinese company catapulted to global fame when it released two AI models that were so advanced, and so much cheaper to build, that the news wiped nearly US$600 billion off Nvidia’s market value. Pan’s story reflects a growing trend among China’s AI talents to reject Silicon Valley jobs for the AI industry in China.
Besides lower living costs and proximity to family, working in China also means opportunity to take on significant roles early in their careers. For example, DeepSeek filled its ranks with young graduates and interns from elite Chinese universities, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University. Nearly half the world’s top AI researchers completed their undergraduate studies in China.
Even American companies hire Chinese interns with strong engineering or data-processing capabilities to work on AI projects, either remotely or in their Silicon Valley offices – proof that the U.S. recognizes Chinese students known for doing very solid work. Many Chinese students actually are not that interested in full-time jobs in America due to worries over anti-immigration policies and anti-Chinese racism there.
The shift in mindset where unlike earlier generations of elite Chinese tech workers, who preferred Silicon Valley jobs for higher salaries and a chance to work alongside the world’s top innovators, a growing share of young AI engineers is choosing to stay home. There are also more opportunities for them as China’s domestic AI industry expands, with tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and ByteDance.
Still, by 2030, China’s demand for AI professionals is expected to reach six million. However, the domestic pool can provide only one-third of the talent. That leaves a shortage of about four million workers, according to a May 2023 report published by American consulting firm McKinsey. China’s severe shortage is in the top-tier talent such as AI scientists.
Top Chinese universities such as Tsinghua University and Renmin University have already established AI schools and launched AI-focused curricula to expand the talent pool. But the real long-term challenges are accumulating enough data to train AI models and increasing computing power, which is a key driver of AI progress, at a time when U.S. chip curbs are in place.
As battles for AI workers get ugly and the estimated average annual salary for an AI engineer in China skyrockets to around 380,000 yuan (US$52,000), aggressive poaching saw DeepSeek core researcher Luo Fuli jumped ship to Xiaomi after reportedly being offered an annual salary in the tens of millions. Meanwhile, Alibaba recruited Singapore-based AI expert Steven Hoi from Salesforce Research Asia.
ByteDance, on the other hand, hired computer scientist Wu Yonghui, a 17-year Google veteran. A quarter of openings among the top 20 “new economy” job types on Maimai (a Chinese professional online network similar to LinkedIn) in 2024 through October were directly related to AI, including roles like algorithm engineer, recommendation algorithm engineer, large language model (LLM) specialist.
America thinks China is trying to unseat America, but the truth is that young people were inspired by new technology developments such as OpenAI. In the early 2000s, graduates from China’s top universities were inspired by the likes of Google and Microsoft, Today, without supplies of imported advanced chips, Chinese AI developers were forced to share their work with each other and experimented with new approaches to the AI technology.
DeepSeek is a classic example of how the Chinese can build an independent AI talent development ecosystem despite U.S.’ best efforts to cripple China. DeepSeek’s founder, 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, studied computer engineering at Zhejiang University without studying abroad. Instead of recruiting engineers from major corporations or foreign big tech firms, he formed an AI development team with young engineers who had only one to three years of experience.
The best part is, powered by the open source DeepSeek-V3 model, DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot was made at a fraction of the cost (US$6 million) – significantly less than the billions spent by rivals. Crucially, it took a team of only 139 engineers – nearly all trained and experienced in China – to develop this groundbreaking AI model, challenging Silicon Valley’s top brains.
More importantly, every year, China produces 80,000 PhD graduates in AI-related science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, reinforcing a large-scale system for AI talent development. But DeepSeek is just one of China’s top seven AI companies. A U.S. think tank reported that in 2022, China accounted for 47% of the world’s top 20% of AI researchers, far outpacing the U.S. at 18%.
While countries like the U.S. is declaring tariffs war and trying to end the Ukraine War, and countries like Malaysia continues to protect hate preacher Zakir Naik and busy promoting religious radicalization, China is charging ahead to dominate a new global economy – Artificial Intelligence (AI) – which could worth a staggering US$15.7 trillion in 2030, according to PwC.
However, the Middle Kingdom also faces a new problem – shortage of Artificial Intelligence talents. From start-ups like DeepSeek to industry giants such as ByteDance, top Chinese technology companies are hunting – even poaching – people for jobs in AI. The lack of supply is so serious that headhunters have to recruit top AI talent from overseas, including the U.S., Europe and Singapore.
Following the global success of China’s newest AI darling DeepSeek, there have been a surge in interest of skilled AI workers. Job applications for AI engineers rose 69.6% in the first week after China’s spring recruitment season kicked off in February 4. Even AI-related sectors such as the computer hardware industry saw more job openings for technical talent like engineers for research on humanoid robots.
Sure, AI still cannot predict winning lottery numbers, even though there has been a spike in gamblers trying to use AI technology as a prediction machine. But the mismatch between AI talent demand and supply has created a new goldmine – AI-related job openings. Besides offering huge salary to entice the existing talent, some companies have to resort to stealing talents from rival companies.
The demand for AI talent in China has been skyrocketing since American AI company OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released in late 2022. Even though Chinese universities are investing in training AI talent, in order to do cutting-edge research and development (R&D), candidates typically need to have PhDs. Therefore, the output of AI-trained PhD holders is relatively low.
But even back in 2020 before ChatGPT was unleashed, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China reported that the country faced a shortage of more than five million AI professionals, with only one qualified person for every 10 AI jobs. If the talent shortfall fails to get “urgent priority” and China does not “scale up talent production”, the talent gap will exceed 10 million by 2025.
Since 2024, domestic generative video AI models have experienced explosive growth in China. New job roles have emerged, such as AI content creators, AI director assistants, and AI scriptwriters. In 2024 alone, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security introduced 19 new professions, including generative AI systems operator.
Already, more than 500 universities and colleges in China have rolled out an AI major since 2018, a year after Beijing unveiled its plan to become the world leader in AI. Still, the only way Chinese tech companies could compete for talent shortage is with attractive salaries. Graduates with PhDs could command an annual salary of between 800,000 yuan (US$110,000) and one million yuan (US$140,000).
The highest salary offered to top talent was between 10 million yuan (US$1.1 million) and 20 million yuan (US$2.2 million) per year. DeepSeek’s highest offer is a monthly salary of between 80,000 yuan and 110,000 yuan, which, coupled with the company’s 14-month pay system, could mean an annual income of up to 1.54 million yuan (US$212,000) for deep learning researchers.
At the end of his internship at Nvidia in 2023, Zizheng Pan, a young artificial-intelligence researcher from China, faced a critical decision – stay in Silicon Valley with the world’s leading chip designers or return home to join DeepSeek, then a little-known startup in eastern China. Pan chose DeepSeek without much hesitation, suggesting that talents do not necessarily attract to America.
Of course, less than two years after Pan joined DeepSeek, the Chinese company catapulted to global fame when it released two AI models that were so advanced, and so much cheaper to build, that the news wiped nearly US$600 billion off Nvidia’s market value. Pan’s story reflects a growing trend among China’s AI talents to reject Silicon Valley jobs for the AI industry in China.
Besides lower living costs and proximity to family, working in China also means opportunity to take on significant roles early in their careers. For example, DeepSeek filled its ranks with young graduates and interns from elite Chinese universities, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University. Nearly half the world’s top AI researchers completed their undergraduate studies in China.
Even American companies hire Chinese interns with strong engineering or data-processing capabilities to work on AI projects, either remotely or in their Silicon Valley offices – proof that the U.S. recognizes Chinese students known for doing very solid work. Many Chinese students actually are not that interested in full-time jobs in America due to worries over anti-immigration policies and anti-Chinese racism there.
The shift in mindset where unlike earlier generations of elite Chinese tech workers, who preferred Silicon Valley jobs for higher salaries and a chance to work alongside the world’s top innovators, a growing share of young AI engineers is choosing to stay home. There are also more opportunities for them as China’s domestic AI industry expands, with tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and ByteDance.
Still, by 2030, China’s demand for AI professionals is expected to reach six million. However, the domestic pool can provide only one-third of the talent. That leaves a shortage of about four million workers, according to a May 2023 report published by American consulting firm McKinsey. China’s severe shortage is in the top-tier talent such as AI scientists.
Top Chinese universities such as Tsinghua University and Renmin University have already established AI schools and launched AI-focused curricula to expand the talent pool. But the real long-term challenges are accumulating enough data to train AI models and increasing computing power, which is a key driver of AI progress, at a time when U.S. chip curbs are in place.
As battles for AI workers get ugly and the estimated average annual salary for an AI engineer in China skyrockets to around 380,000 yuan (US$52,000), aggressive poaching saw DeepSeek core researcher Luo Fuli jumped ship to Xiaomi after reportedly being offered an annual salary in the tens of millions. Meanwhile, Alibaba recruited Singapore-based AI expert Steven Hoi from Salesforce Research Asia.
ByteDance, on the other hand, hired computer scientist Wu Yonghui, a 17-year Google veteran. A quarter of openings among the top 20 “new economy” job types on Maimai (a Chinese professional online network similar to LinkedIn) in 2024 through October were directly related to AI, including roles like algorithm engineer, recommendation algorithm engineer, large language model (LLM) specialist.
America thinks China is trying to unseat America, but the truth is that young people were inspired by new technology developments such as OpenAI. In the early 2000s, graduates from China’s top universities were inspired by the likes of Google and Microsoft, Today, without supplies of imported advanced chips, Chinese AI developers were forced to share their work with each other and experimented with new approaches to the AI technology.
DeepSeek is a classic example of how the Chinese can build an independent AI talent development ecosystem despite U.S.’ best efforts to cripple China. DeepSeek’s founder, 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, studied computer engineering at Zhejiang University without studying abroad. Instead of recruiting engineers from major corporations or foreign big tech firms, he formed an AI development team with young engineers who had only one to three years of experience.
The best part is, powered by the open source DeepSeek-V3 model, DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot was made at a fraction of the cost (US$6 million) – significantly less than the billions spent by rivals. Crucially, it took a team of only 139 engineers – nearly all trained and experienced in China – to develop this groundbreaking AI model, challenging Silicon Valley’s top brains.
More importantly, every year, China produces 80,000 PhD graduates in AI-related science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, reinforcing a large-scale system for AI talent development. But DeepSeek is just one of China’s top seven AI companies. A U.S. think tank reported that in 2022, China accounted for 47% of the world’s top 20% of AI researchers, far outpacing the U.S. at 18%.
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