ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 examines the way relationships between artificial intelligence (AI) and education have been shaped by geographical differences in China. This will begin with an examination of Zhongguancun, a long-established hub of technology development in northwest Beijing that has been incorporated into a broader vision of urban ‘zones’ of intensive entrepreneurial creativity and agglomeration. However, Zhongguancun will be shown to have distinct academic origins, and this will lead to the suggestion of a ‘university AI power’, in which higher education institutions are being imagined as core elements of future AI production through networks of government and private sector actors. Nevertheless, these arrangements will be shown to be clustering around urban areas and existing sites of higher socio-economic status and opportunity. Historical contexts will be examined in the form of ‘Special Economic Zones’ (SEZs), which are suggested as precursors to the contemporary ‘hubs’ of AI development, as areas of government experimentation with market reforms. Further, the more deep-seated historical divides between urban and rural areas in China, and the subsequent policies which have sought to address them, will be outlined as an underlying context for specific educational projects, such as Tomorrow Advancing Life’s (TAL’s) development of AI language learning for ethnic minorities in Sichuan province.
