“AI Plus”: China’s new authoritarianism

While China seeks to consolidate its existing EU-critical infrastructure, Beijing aims to extend beyond 5G and the grid. Its “AI Plus” strategy seeks to embed AI across industries and digital ecosystems, thereby generating security risks, while also implementing a refined authoritarian outlook.

Key takeaways:

The European Commission is on a path to ban supplies from high-risk vendors to its critical infrastructure. The most straightforward way to achieve this is to convert the “5G toolbox” adopted in 2020 from recommendations to binding commitments. While no formal proposals have yet been tabled, this move towards digital sovereignty and independence increasingly appears as set policy. The EU is also more focused on AI and its impact on the future economy. Still, the current emphasis is on its use in science, regulation, standards of utilization, competitiveness and innovation.

The security dimension is primarily conceived as pertaining to critical network hardware, an approach that dates to the late 2010s and early 2020s. And even at this level, EU member states continue to have divergent risk assessments and policies. At one end of the spectrum, Germany is considering using public funds to replace Huawei’s equipment in Deutsche Telekom, while Finland is expanding its ban of the Chinese firm into base stations and other 5G-related services. At the other end, the depth of security perception divergence has been illustrated by Spain’s decision to select Huawei for its Ministry of the Interior networks (later terminated), even as the cabinet in Madrid cancelled another contract with the Chinese firm. By 2023, only 10 member states had implemented the full EU toolbox for 5G cybersecurity.

Beyond 5G

While these efforts are important, they do not address the new generation of goals and activities sufficiently by companies such as Huawei. Conceptually, the linkage between 5G and AI was evident in the Chinese firm’s pitch to European partners years ago. In 2020, it reached an agreement to establish a laboratory with the University of Aveiro and the Telecommunications Institute in Portugal. The horizontal goal of linking companies, industries and their ecosystems is explicit in its approach. Research by CEIAS has documented nearly 100 cooperation agreements with Huawei across Europe.

The appearance of Deepseek, a Chinese large language model (LLM), last year generated controversy and a sense of disruption. The EU member states’ regulatory responses have been largely defensive, with Italy blocking the AI app due to privacy concerns. Several other EU member states are conducting their own investigations. Deepseek has experienced rapid adoption, predominantly in the “Global South,” but also in Belarus and Russia. Within the EU, several start-ups also turned to open-source LLMs to reduce costs. Chinese LLMs are also spreading through the use of Chinese-made phones such as Xiaomi and Huawei, and various other platforms, such as EVs, in the cases of taxi companies like Lyft and Bolt.

Huawei is also pushing its transition to the 6G toolkit, which supports AI-related and autonomous network functionalities. The latest example is the Spanish operator MasOrange, which is banking on the Chinese vendor for its future. Despite various uncertainties, the firm has recently opened an antenna-manufacturing facility in France.

The company is also deepening its presence in grid management systems. For instance, in October 2025, it signed a contract to supply a grid-forming energy storage platform to GoldenPeaks Capital, a rapidly growing power producer in Central and Eastern Europe. In Hungary, Huawei has long been present in various critical networks, for instance, through the so-called “5G smart railway harbor,” which opened in 2023. Since 2011, the firm has been running the ‘Seeds for the Future’ program, supporting ICT students aimed at cultivating its image and openness to its products.

This range of activities seeks not only to counter various efforts to accelerate the replacement and further installation of Huawei’s hardware but also to prepare the ground for AI-related services. It also seeks to position the company as Europe begins developing its 6G systems in the early 2030s.

China’s “AI Plus”

The guidelines for the implementation of the ‘AI Plus’ strategy by China’s State Council were published in the late summer of 2025. The key declared aim is the creation of ‘intelligent economy and society’ via the application and integration of AI in six main sectors: science and technology; industrial development; consumption; people’s well-being; governance and global cooperation. The end date for achieving this goal is 2035, with interim benchmarks in 2027 and 2030.

Beijing’s motivations for this policy are manifold, ranging from enhanced productivity, competitiveness, and new value-creation models to efficiency and control. The instruments of implementation involve “human-computer coordination, cross-sector integration, co-creation and sharing.” AI is intended to become the infrastructure of everyday life, and all of its activities and creations are defined as a mandate for all levels and structures of the Chinese state. AI plus is destined to become the new operational grid of interaction.

Predictably, the diffusion of AI Plus requires deep penetration of numerous Chinese AI models. Indeed, this is explicitly stipulated in official documents. This is increasingly the case, as recent data has indicated that China-made AI platforms are downloaded more frequently than those created in the US. The field in this space is also populated by a rising number of firms, with Alibaba and ByteDance the latest to strengthen their positions. The adoption of the open source model by Chinese entities is certain to accelerate the rate of adoption, particularly in the “Global South.”

Huawei’s “AI Plus”

Huawei is at the forefront of Chinese efforts to spread and embed AI technologies across many parts of the world. It offers a range of platforms and services within its ecosystem, aiming to provide an expansive set of tools. A foundational idea of their approach is the horizontal integration of various entities, data domains, functionalities, and operational systems.

To implement this concept, the company is seeking to install its hardware and then install the required software to operate AI and its applications. Huawei is developing sector-specific platforms in collaboration with partners, including in finance and banking, public services, governance, and office management, for a range of institutions.

Its industrial internet seeks to develop platforms and connect and manage sets of industrial equipment across sectors. A similar approach is being applied to education and research institutions, as well as to healthcare and other sectors.

The Chinese company is utilizing various policies to ensure the distribution and consolidation of its AI-related instruments. One is talent scoping and recruitment in the IT domain to secure familiarity and adoption of its hardware and software. Another is strategic cooperation with various telecommunications providers to install and operate its systems and services. Thirdly, Huawei is entering into large-scale state-level contractual partnerships to implement AI strategies in various countries. For instance, in Uzbekistan, the firm is creating the entire AI infrastructure. Fourthly, it offers its services at the company level to ensure broader penetration.

Refined authoritarianism

AI Plus represents the establishment of an all-encompassing infrastructure that integrates disparate networks across numerous institutions. Such an infrastructure will have transformative effects across society, economy, politics and culture.

Within China, it has already strengthened the authorities’ capacity for surveillance at scale, censorship, data collection, content removal, and online policing, among other measures. The capabilities of this new infrastructure to enhance authoritarian control are considerable and evident. For some, it is the ultimate extension of techno-totalitarian control and the completion of a dystopia. In a truly Orwellian fashion, Chinese AI models can delete information and imagery, thereby reshaping their own realities and interpretations.

Greater clarity on the risks for states, institutions, and companies beyond China is also emerging. For instance, tests conducted by the Taiwanese National Security Bureau of five different Chinese AI models identified myriad risks, ranging from the identification of users and the collection of data and records, to the transfer of personal data back to China-based servers, to access to location data, the collection of screenshots, and the harvesting of device parameters. The application of such tasks can extend globally, as Chinese models leverage their open-source approach and seek maximal penetration.

Responding to AI with Chinese characteristics

AI with Chinese characteristics is taking shape at an accelerated pace and is being adopted by an increasing number of countries. Under the imperatives of productivity and the attractiveness of open-source and low-cost AI models, companies and individuals will be increasingly tempted to choose China-made AI platforms.

For decades, companies such as Huawei and ZTE have focused on penetrating communication and other critical networks, predominantly through their hardware. Despite some limited pushback in the West, their operations have largely continued uninterrupted. In doing so, they have laid the requisite infrastructure, which can now be used to integrate with the new AI tools. From this perspective, the key components of China’s refined authoritarianism are falling into place, this time coupled with the instrumentality of productivity and its enhancement and attraction.

These are proving sufficient drivers for the “Global South,” which is also certain to be among the first to join the Global Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which Beijing is establishing and will be headquartered in Shanghai. Western responses to this dynamic remain haphazard and devoid of a thorough appreciation of its longer-term implications. AI Plus is emerging as a new toolbox of authoritarianism, likely to enhance its allure in an international context of the weakening of democracies.