National Policies, AI Tech & Local Infrastructure Jointly Fuel China’s Intelligent Global Expansion into “Going Global 2.0”

The integration of artificial intelligence and overseas expansion has entered a new era across China’s industries. Enterprises have moved past the 1.0 phase of isolated AI tools such as machine translation and asset generation, and fully embraced Going Global 2.0 — an intelligent ecosystem built on multi-agent collaboration, full-chain data-driven decision-making and comprehensive efficiency improvement. Supported by top-tier national strategies, cutting-edge AI innovation, targeted local government incentives and robust computing infrastructure, domestic digital sectors including games, short dramas and cross-border e-commerce have delivered remarkable overseas revenue growth. AI has become the core growth driver helping companies break domestic market saturation and unlock global incremental opportunities.

1. Top-Level National Policies Lay Strategic Framework for AI-powered Globalization

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan prioritizes the global expansion of digital culture and digital services, explicitly encouraging online games, web novels and short-form dramas to enter international markets. The state outlines a roadmap leveraging AI to boost cultural foreign trade and foster globally competitive digital enterprise clusters. Joint documents issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Publicity Department launch the “Sailing Global” initiative, establishing a roster of national key cultural export enterprises and projects, offering all-round support including tax incentives, credit loans and international exhibition subsidies for AI-driven content creation and cross-border distribution.

Regional authorities have rolled out refined supporting policies:

• Shanghai: Lingang New Area released a digital culture overseas policy package with 40 EFlops regional computing resources, up to RMB 10 million subsidies for AI creation and overseas distribution, free computing vouchers and low-cost industrial premises. Changning District built Hongqiao Digital Valley as a digital overseas hub, operating a unified intelligent computing platform with discounted international dedicated lines and one-stop cross-border data compliance services, forming a “15-minute overseas service circle”上海市人民….
• Guangdong: The provincial 15th Plan lists generative AI content creation, multilingual localization and game/novel global expansion as core tracks. It pioneers the “domestic data processing for overseas AI inference” model to mitigate cross-border data compliance risks.
• Beijing, Shenzhen, Hainan: Beijing released special measures for digital economy global expansion to support large language models and AI agent overseas deployment; Shenzhen built an integrated AI global service center partnering global tech ecosystems; Hainan Free Trade Port leverages 15% preferential tax and streamlined data circulation rules to form an industrial cluster for AI games and short dramas, attracting leading tech firms to build local AI production pipelinesChina Dail….

A complete policy ecosystem has taken shape, covering R&D subsidies, computing cost reductions, cross-border communication discounts, overseas exhibition support and overseas copyright protection. It drastically cuts trial-and-error costs for AI global ventures and guides firms to shift from simple product exports to integrated global layout of technology, content, services and industrial standards.

2. Full-chain AI Tech Innovation Reshapes Global Industrial Competitiveness

AI has evolved from auxiliary tools to the underlying productive infrastructure covering four core overseas links: R&D localization, cross-border operation, global marketing and user management, rebuilding Chinese companies’ competitive edges abroad.

2.1 Digital Entertainment: AI Industrializes Cross-border Content Production

As China’s flagship overseas sectors, games and short dramas adopt AI across the entire workflow. AI automates art asset generation, multilingual translation, regional plot adaptation, overseas version testing and long-term live operation planning. Leading game developers generate over 80% of art materials via AI, while short drama studios slash production costs by 90% and shorten production cycles from months to days. Powered by cross-cultural large language models, AI automatically adapts narratives and art styles to regional preferences across Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, solving the long-standing “cultural discount” pain point. Firms including China Literature, Sanqi Interactive and Century Huateng rely on AI-original overseas IP incubation to achieve substantial overseas revenue growth from 2025 to 2026. In 2025, overseas revenue of Chinese self-developed games hit USD 20.455 billion, while global short drama market revenue reached USD 2.38 billion, up 263% year-on-year.

2.2 Cross-border E-commerce: Multi-Agent Systems Enable Data-based Intelligent Decisions

Cross-border industries have upgraded from standalone AI tools to collaborative multi-agent platforms. AI aggregates global consumption data, exchange rates, competitor intelligence and logistics metrics to autonomously handle product selection, dynamic pricing, inventory replenishment and regional marketing budget allocation, replacing subjective manual judgment with data-backed strategies. Meanwhile, AI customer service, multilingual virtual streamers and automated social media asset generation drastically cut overseas labor costs, with leading SaaS providers recording over 20% year-on-year growth in AI product revenue.

2.3 Global Marketing & User Insight: Tap Untapped Overseas Demand

Multimodal AI delivers cross-lingual, cross-cultural consumer analysis, identifying underserved niche markets to guide product iteration and category innovation. This transforms businesses from “selling existing products” to “creating demand overseas”, lifting overseas user LTV and ARPU significantly. The global market for games and short dramas boasts massive untapped potential with higher average paying user revenue than domestic markets; layered AI operation maximizes long-term overseas profit margins.

3. Local Computing Infrastructure Build Solid Hardware Foundation for AI Globalization

Specialized digital overseas computing parks and cross-border data infrastructure have been deployed nationwide, providing inclusive computing power and compliant data channels for SMEs:

1. Shanghai Hongqiao Digital Valley: Operates a municipal unified intelligent computing public platform with expanded international dedicated internet links offering up to 80% fee discounts. It provides one-stop data exit risk assessment and trusted cross-border data space services, aggregating over 2,000 digital overseas enterprises across games, short dramas and cross-border e-commerce上海长宁.
2. Lingang, Hainan, Shantou and other regions launched “bonded data processing zones”, enabling overseas AI inference requests to run on domestic computing clusters under strict data security protocols, slashing overseas computing procurement expenses.
3. National cultural export bases and digital trade parks offer free computing quotas and public AI tool libraries covering LLMs, video generation and virtual humans, lowering technical adoption thresholds for startups.

Integrated computing, compliance and government services resolve three core pain points for SMEs: high computing costs, complex cross-border data procedures and opaque compliance rules. Advanced AI technologies including large models and intelligent agents are now accessible to small and mid-sized developers, driving industrial-wide intelligent transformation.

4. Industrial Achievements: AI Global Expansion Creates Long-term New Growth Curves

Driven by coordinated policies, technology and infrastructure, tangible industrial results have been realized:

1. Digital culture sector: Chinese self-developed game overseas revenue reached nearly RMB 147 billion in 2025, while global short drama downloads exceeded 1.21 billion. AI-localized content retains nearly three times more users than direct translated versions; Chinese operators account for 90% of total revenue among top 20 global short drama platforms.
2. Corporate performance: Leading firms including Giant Network, X.D. Network and China Literature record overseas business as their core profit driver, with many listed companies reporting overseas revenue growth over 70% YoY. AI cuts comprehensive R&D and operation costs of games & short dramas by over 40%, easing fierce domestic market competition.
3. Industrial model upgrade: Global expansion has shifted from single product export to synchronized output of AI technologies, industrial production pipelines and platform ecosystems. Chinese AI tools and standardized content production systems gain global recognition, forming differentiated competitive advantages worldwide.

Industry Expert Quote

Analyst, Open Source Securities Media Division: AI-powered overseas expansion is a definitive long-term growth track for digital industries over the next 3–5 years. Sustained national policy support, maturing local computing infrastructure and iterative AI agent technology will continuously unlock global market potential. Leveraging complete industrial chains and cost advantages of domestic large models, Chinese enterprises are poised to capture growing shares of the global digital content and service market.

Research Team, Guotai Haitong Securities: Domestic user growth has plateaued with limited ARPU upside, while overseas blue-chip markets represent the primary source of new revenue. Full-chain AI empowerment extends product lifecycles and reduces trial-and-error costs. Combined with reduced platform commission fees, overseas segments will deliver superior long-term profitability compared to domestic markets.

Risk Disclaimer

Potential challenges remain including divergent cross-border data regulations, global copyright standards for AI-generated content, cross-cultural adaptation barriers and slower-than-expected LLM iteration progress. Enterprises expanding overseas must build robust cross-border compliance and content review frameworks simultaneously.