China reports 602m generative AI users and 42.8% penetration

These numbers, if taken at face value, suggest that generative AI is already mainstream among Chinese internet users. A 42.8% penetration rate and hundreds of exaFLOPS of reported intelligent compute mean that China isn’t just catching up on model development—it’s building a huge installed base of everyday users and the infrastructure to serve them. That matters because broad usage generates data, feedback and political pressure to keep investing.

From an AGI‑race perspective, this underscores that the contest isn’t only about who has the single “best” model. It’s also about who can diffuse AI into their economy fastest, across consumer apps, enterprise workflows and government services. China’s strategy of pairing central planning on compute with aggressive rollout of chatbots, office suites and vertical AI tools is visible in these adoption figures.

There are caveats: headline user counts may overstate depth of engagement, and the compute metrics are self‑reported. But directionally, this is a reminder that US and European debates about safety and regulation are playing out against a backdrop where another AI superpower is already normalizing daily generative AI use at scale. That raises the stakes for global coordination on safety standards while making a purely restriction‑based approach less tenable.