“From EVs to AI”: China Accelerates Expansion of Indigenous Standards in Advanced Industries, Clashing With the U.S., the Incumbent Leader

China Unveils Automotive Standardization Plan, Revealing Ambition to Lead the Ecosystem
Standardization Emerges as a Tool for Competitiveness, Raising Questions Over U.S.-Led Technology Order
“Top-Tier Technology vs. Low-Cost Efficiency”: U.S.-China Showdown Intensifies in AI

China has unveiled a plan to establish standards spanning the broader mobility ecosystem. The objective is to move beyond simply manufacturing electric vehicles and to preempt the technical rules governing related fields, then link them to international standards to gain an upper hand in the global contest for technological supremacy. Such state-led standardization efforts are being pursued aggressively across multiple advanced industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), as well as EVs. Competition with the United States, the long-standing leader in global technology standards, has now intensified.

China’s Bid to Dominate the EV Ecosystem

According to a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report on the 27th, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially announced its “2026 Automotive Standardization Work Plan” on the 26th. The core of the plan is to complete a comprehensive standards framework for the automotive industry during the period covered by China’s medium- to long-term economic development blueprint, the 15th Five-Year Plan. Key tasks include specifying rules for the use of AI inside vehicles; establishing precision testing and security requirements for AI models used in automated driving systems; developing standard guidelines for large automotive models and end-to-end AI systems; and standardizing the value chain for solid-state batteries.

In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it would expand China’s voice in international automotive rulemaking bodies, including WP.29, the automotive regulatory forum under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The plan is to increase the participation of Chinese experts and companies in discussions on international regulations in core next-generation automotive fields such as autonomous driving, EV safety and batteries, while supporting the incorporation of China-proposed technical standards into the international community. It signals China’s intent to participate directly in the process of writing the rules for the future automotive industry, rather than merely accepting rules already created by others.

China is concentrating on establishing its own standards because it seeks to lead the rules and order of the industrial ecosystem over the long term. In market competition, the crucial question is not only “what is being made,” but also around which specifications and operating systems those products become embedded in the market. When a product’s installed base expands, the surrounding technical specifications and operating methods typically spread with it. In the EV sector, for instance, when the products of a particular company or country dominate the market, battery specifications, charging methods, software update systems and maintenance parts networks tend to harden into de facto industry standards. Companies entering the market later must manufacture components and build services in line with that system. Product competition thus turns into ecosystem competition.

The Chinese Government’s Standard-Setting Drive

The Chinese government’s efforts to secure technical standards have continued for several years. A representative example is the “National Standardization Development Outline” released in 2021. Through that document, China set a goal of cultivating standardization as a core instrument for strengthening national competitiveness by 2035. The plan is to expand Chinese-style technical standards across strategic industries, including AI, EVs, batteries, industrial internet, semiconductors, smart manufacturing, biotechnology and carbon neutrality. To that end, the government declared it would first build a large-scale market and installed base within China, then expand that foundation into international standards.

Chinese state-owned enterprises have actively joined the government’s plan. State Grid Corporation of China has participated aggressively in the formulation of international standards for ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission technology, while China Railway and CRRC have also been pushing to internationalize technical specifications related to high-speed rail. Academia has also reinforced this initiative. In China, around 60 international standardization innovation teams involving more than 15 universities are now accelerating the race for global technical standards. This is part of the government’s “Standardization Talent Development Action Plan” announced in 2023.

This policy stance is also viewed as a challenge to the United States, which has long led global technology standards. The United States has functioned as the central axis of the global technology ecosystem through operating systems (OS), semiconductor design architectures, internet protocols, communications specifications and software development environments. Microsoft’s Windows operating system, Intel’s x86 architecture, Google’s Android, Apple’s mobile ecosystem and Qualcomm’s mobile communications patent system are representative U.S.-origin standards. Core patents held by U.S. companies and U.S. influence in international technical standards organizations, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), are also cited as pillars supporting the U.S.-centered technology order.

The U.S.-China AI Supremacy Race Enters Full Swing

U.S. “standard hegemony” has continued into the AI era. Multiple U.S. Big Tech companies have shaped global AI technology benchmarks by leading the ecosystem in advanced AI models, semiconductors and cloud infrastructure. The U.S. government is also providing strategic support. The White House released “America’s AI Action Plan” last year, presenting AI deregulation, expansion of data center and semiconductor infrastructure, and dissemination of U.S. AI technology to allies as major priorities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce is conducting standardization work on AI safety and evaluation frameworks, while public-private cooperation is also strengthening as private AI companies participate in the government’s pre-deployment evaluation program for AI models.

While the United States is leading the technology standards race with its ability to develop top-tier AI models, China is focusing on the application and diffusion of domestically developed AI. Its strategy is to lower entry barriers through low-cost open-source AI models, including DeepSeek, and draw ordinary consumers as well as corporate and government systems into its own AI ecosystem. The official application programming interface (API) price for DeepSeek’s latest model, V4 Pro, is just $0.0036 per 1 million input tokens and $0.87 per 1 million output tokens. OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-5.5, is priced at $5 per 1 million input tokens and $30 per 1 million output tokens.

The ability to deliver solid performance at relatively low development cost is also cited as an advantage of Chinese AI. For example, Alibaba Group’s latest AI model, Qwen3.7-Max, recently scored 1,541 points on Code Arena, an authoritative AI coding leaderboard, ranking fourth. Among the top five, the other four spots excluding Alibaba were monopolized by Anthropic’s Claude models. AI coding is a core business model in the AI industry with a clearly demonstrated paid-subscription margin discipline, and it relies on standardized programming languages used worldwide, such as C++ and Python. That makes it an especially accessible field for Chinese AI companies seeking to target global markets while circumventing Western regulatory and decoupling barriers as well as cultural gaps.