China AI Startups Head to Singapore in Bid for Global Growth
- AI founders lured by access to foreign capital, technologies
- Young AI companies finding it hard to go global from China
Inside the TikTok office in Singapore in 2023.
Photographer: Ore Huiying/BloombergWhen Wu Cunsong and Chen Binghui founded their artificial intelligence startup two years ago in Hangzhou, China, they quickly ran into obstacles, including dearth of venture capital. This March, they did what scores of other Chinese AI firms have done and moved their company, Tabcut, 2,500 miles southwest to Singapore.
The business-friendly country offers Wu and Chen better access to global investors and customers at a time when elevated geopolitical tensions keep many US and international firms away from China. Equally crucial for an AI startup, they can buy Nvidia Corp.’s latest chips and other cutting-edge technologies in the politically neutral island nation, something that would have been impossible in China because of US export controls.