What China’s 15th Five-Year Plan says about AGI, chips, and self-reliance

It’s been a busy time at Trivium HQ.

• We’ve been poring over China’s newly released Five-Year Plan (FYP) and Government Work Report (GWR), and parsing what they mean for clients.

Unsurprisingly, much of the conversation has focused on the usual macro questions – China’s GDP target, its consumption strategy, and the outlook for the property sector.

Then, of course, there’s tech: Between the FYP, GWR, and planning and budget documents from the macro planner (NDRC) and Ministry of Finance, Beijing has given us a lot to go on regarding China’s technology strategy for the next five years.

• Since we can’t capture all of it in this note (though we’re always happy to brief clients directly), we’ll give you a quick dose of the most talked-about areas of the tech agenda – AI, self-reliance, and semiconductors.

First up, AI – which is dead center of Beijing’s digital economy agenda.

• The plan calls for deepening the integration of AI across all sectors of the economy and society – from scientific research and industrial development to public services and social governance.

Accessible, high-quality data is a key piece of the puzzle: The plan calls for accelerating the construction of AI corpora and building high-quality datasets specifically for energy, transportation, manufacturing, education, healthcare, and finance.

The FYP also flags the development of a framework for the “reasonable use” of AI training data.

• That’s a big deal, because the Chinese state sits on an enormous reservoir of data that the private sector cannot easily access.
• Funneling that data toward AI training could give domestic model developers a meaningful edge over foreign competitors that lack equivalent access.

The FYP doubles down on the idea that AI-powered devices – such as smartphones, robots, wearables, and other next-gen consumer electronics – are vehicles for “intelligent consumption.”

• To encourage adoption, AI-powered devices will be included in this year’s consumer goods subsidy programs.
• Policymakers see a double win for consumption, not only by increasing purchases of the devices themselves but also by spurring purchases of AI-powered services through them.

Perhaps more interestingly, the FYP also signals that officials will focus on encouraging innovation “in multimodal intelligence, agentic AI, embodied intelligence, and swarm intelligence.”

• The fact that agentic AI was only popularized in the past few months, yet still made its way into the FYP, highlights China’s characteristic – and sometimes startling – policy-response speed.

For those wondering if China has an AGI agenda, the plan gave us an answer – sort of: It says China will “explore development paths for general artificial intelligence” – the first explicit reference to AGI in a major Chinese national policy document.

• But the cautious “exploring” hedging suggests Beijing is not yet convinced that current scaling approaches are the only route to more general AI capabilities.
• It may also reflect reluctance to anchor national strategy to a still-contested concept.

Beyond AI, the 15th FYP also doubles down on a familiar priority: Technological self-reliance.

• The plan dedicates a full section to self-reliance, calling on the state to take “extraordinary measures” to reduce reliance on foreign technologies – and demanding “decisive breakthroughs” in integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, foundational software, advanced materials, and biomanufacturing.

Annoyingly, the FYP itself does not elaborate on what those “extraordinary measures” might look like.

• But an article published alongside the plan in Study Times – the official journal of the Central Party School – offers some clues.

According to the article:

• “When we say ‘take extraordinary measures’… it involves a comprehensive innovation in thinking patterns, organizational methods, and policy tools.”
• “The US’s ‘CHIPS and Science Act’ and ‘Project Genesis,’ as well as the EU’s ‘European Chips Act,’ all utilize unconventional means such as legislation, massive subsidies, and localization requirements to compete for future industrial dominance.”

Reading between the lines, the message seems clear: Chinese policymakers should feel empowered to move faster and use a broader policy toolkit than they have in the past.

To be clear, no Two Sessions document explicitly calls for a sweeping domestic substitution drive or massive new subsidy programs in these sectors.

• But the surrounding discourse suggests Beijing is increasingly willing to consider more aggressive policy tools.

On semiconductors in particular: Beijing made it clear that advancing in semiconductors isn’t just a short-term self-reliance play.

• The Government Work Report designated semiconductors a “pillar industry,” alongside aerospace, biotech, and the low-altitude economy.
• In Chinese policy lexicon, “pillar industries” are those with “large growth potential, high technology concentration, and broad market penetration.”

In other words, semiconductors are a load-bearing layer of the modern industrial system – underpinning everything from AI and robotics to electric vehicles and advanced manufacturing.

• The focus is on “catching up” to relieve foreign chip “chokeholds,” but also, in tandem, “leapfrogging” to gain capabilities in new semiconductors for which no commercial supply chain yet exists – to power the broader industrial economy.

This dual designation will open the floodgates to more state support – including subsidies, cheap credit, procurement opportunities, and favorable regulations.

• But frustratingly for Beijing, there is only so much the state can do to accelerate chip development cycles.
• Ultimately, policymakers will have to wait for domestic manufacturers like CXMT and SMIC to make progress.

Taken together, the message from this year’s planning documents is pretty clear: China’s leaders see the next five years as a decisive window for technological competition.

• AI will be embedded across the economy.
• Policymakers will roll out a new policy playbook to pursue tech self-reliance.
• And advancing in semiconductors, in particular, will remain a generational national project.

The direction of travel isn’t changing – but the urgency and scope of the policy response is ramping up.

• That means almost certainly more tech ambition, more policy experimentation – and more friction with the Western world.

Kendra Schaefer, Head of Tech Research, Trivium China