China unveils 18 new ‘AI+’ IP public service pilot scenarios

CNIPA’s new ‘AI+ IP’ pilots show how quickly China is moving to industrialize AI in support functions like patent search, infringement analysis and rights protection. On the surface, these are bureaucratic tools, but they help normalize AI use inside government workflows and lower friction for domestic firms to protect and exploit IP. That’s strategically important for Chinese AI companies trying to commercialize models and tooling at home while competing abroad.([chinanews.com.cn](https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2025/12-22/10538378.shtml))

The move also hints at a governance model where AI is woven deeply into state legal and administrative processes, not just consumer apps. AI‑driven IP services could speed up patent examination and dispute resolution, and they create valuable structured datasets about innovation patterns and enforcement outcomes. Over time, those datasets can feed back into training sovereign Chinese models with rich domain knowledge about technology and regulation.

For the global race to AGI, this doesn’t shift core capabilities, but it strengthens China’s institutional capacity to absorb and deploy advanced models at scale. The more that routine legal and administrative functions depend on AI, the stronger the political incentive becomes to keep pushing domestic model performance, even if geopolitical tensions constrain access to Western systems.