China Launches AI Network Initiative to Support Small Businesses Amid Rising Costs

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced a new initiative on Thursday to establish an inclusive computing service network aimed at reducing artificial intelligence expenses for small and medium-sized enterprises. This policy responds to increasing demand for processing power and recent price hikes by domestic cloud providers. The network will focus on expanding coverage, lowering costs, and enhancing service quality to make computing resources more accessible. Under the plan, the ministry will collaborate with telecom carriers and service providers to develop computing facilities near national public service platforms and industrial clusters. These facilities will include data centers and integrated training and inference systems. Additionally, providers are encouraged to adopt flexible pricing models, such as billing based on CPU, GPU, or token usage, and offer subsidies or vouchers. The move comes as major Chinese cloud companies, including Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding, and Tencent Holdings, have raised prices for AI and storage services in recent weeks, partly due to higher hardware costs like AI chips and memory. This initiative seeks to alleviate financial pressures on small businesses by improving access to essential computing support.