——- An exclusive interview with Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of Web Summit

The era of artificial intelligence (AI) is quietly approaching. At the Web Summit Vancouver 2025, hosted by Web Summit, “artificial intelligence” unsurprisingly became the hottest topic. What challenges and opportunities will the development of AI technology bring to human society? How should we view China’s role in the global AI landscape? Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder and CEO of Web Summit, recently shared his insights in an exclusive interview with China News Service’s “West-East Talk” program.

Web Summit Vancouver 2025 takes place in Vancouver, Canada in May 2025, attracting more than 15,000 attendees from over 100 countries. (Photo from CNS)

Here are the excerpts of the interview:

CNS: What role does Web Summit aim to play in exploring or promoting AI innovation and development?

Cosgrave: On the opening night of the Web Summit Vancouver, one of the speakers, Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor at New York University, countered certain viewpoints on AI, particularly the exaggerated claims about the progress of current models made by some large corporations. In my view, a significant portion of the discourse on AI is inevitably tinged with marketing and hype. In the cycle of any new technology, people often get caught up in hype, sometimes to the point of surpassing reality. Marcus provided a contrasting perspective.

The purpose of Web Summit is to establish meaningful connections, attempt to discover interesting companies and trends, help people in specific industries communicate within the network of the technology ecosystem, and also hear interesting views from speakers like Marcus.

I very much hope to host a Web Summit in China’s mainland, but we must find the right city. I believe it would be an eye-opening experience for many European industry professionals. We could bring a large number of interesting people from around the world to China. I think the opportunity Europe faces is to collaborate more closely with China—this is inevitable. I also hope that not only Web Summit but other events can serve as bridges connecting China with Europe or other parts of the world, as we are trying to move towards a more integrated world, not a “balkanized” (fragmented) one.

CNS: How do you view the current pace of AI and internet technology development in China, and how do you evaluate China’s role in the global AI landscape?

Cosgrave: Seven years ago, I told the media in Hong Kong that China would dominate AI in the future. They found it absurd because, at the time, they hadn’t even heard of Chinese AI companies.

I believe that to judge the future technical window and potentially dominant geographical regions, one should look at high-quality citations in the research. That is, to see which universities and which researchers—most importantly, where they are from—are producing the most significant research results.

At that time, Chinese universities already dominated high-quality citations in AI and machine learning. I think this (trend) is inevitable. Not immediately, but over time, from 2018 onward over the next decade, research in this field will begin to move from universities into the commercial sphere. These breakthroughs will be commercialized. Therefore, innovation primarily occurs within the university system, sometimes also from research labs of some tech companies, and then it is commercialized. Observing the high-quality publications by Chinese researchers, you will find that China is accelerating ahead. More breakthroughs in this field are happening in China.

Look at patents, another indicator. In 2010, China was still significantly behind Europe and the United States in AI and machine learning patents. By 2017 and 2018, alongside commercial output, China’s patents began to catch up with Europe and the United States. Today, 60-70% of patents in the AI field come from Chinese entities. Who will continue to dominate AI? The answer is only China.

Unfortunately, propagandists in the West now believe their own propaganda. Eventually, enough people in Western political, business, and academic circles will realize that, in terms of innovation, the Western system is inferior to China’s. This is not the majority view in the West yet. I think the challenge for the West now is to study China’s innovation system and learn from what China is doing.

Robots from Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics team win the championship at the China’s first-ever fully autonomous 3-on-3 AI robot football competition in Beijing, Jun. 28, 2025. (Photo from CNS)

CNS: Some voices suggest that China could become a “threat” to the West in the AI field. What is your view?

Cosgrave: I will give an example from Japan. In the early 1980s, Japanese car manufacturers surpassed the United States in innovation, with better, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient engine technology. Then the United States claimed that Japan was threatening America and the Japanese government was interfering in the auto industry. Consequently, they imposed huge tariffs on Japanese car companies. This is very similar to the current situation. In the late 1980s, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believed that the best supercomputer manufacturer in the world at the time was Japan’s NEC, so they signed a contract with them. However, the White House intervened on national security grounds, claiming that Japanese computers posed a threat to national security. Thus, NEC supercomputers were banned.

Historically, whenever the United States was outcompeted in an industry, it deflected by citing national security, government intervention, or excessive subsidies—as if the U.S. government had never bailed out legacy airlines, car manufacturers, or provided subsidies in numerous fields. Now it’s the year of 2025, and the storyline and pretext are very similar. The fact they cover with words is that Chinese companies and universities have already won in the competition.

Guizhou’s first autonomous bus line, the Huaxi University Town Unmanned Bus Line, officially launches on May. 4, 2025. (Photo from CNS)

CNS: Are you concerned that AI technology is leading human society into a “gray zone” where technology outpaces regulatory and ethical considerations?

Cosgrave: New technology, or any other technology for that matter, is not inherently neutral. It can be good, or it can be bad. The Western GPS satellite positioning system was not designed to deliver pad thai or pizza to your door but to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles to cities or specific areas.

Today’s automotive technology is surrounded by numerous regulations. It was a transformative technology a hundred years ago. Along the way, people introduced rules and regulations to try to coexist with this incredible technology, yet it still “kills” many people around the world. We try to mitigate its negative consequences with seat belts, airbags, special braking systems, warning systems, and overtaking rules.

Certainly, when it comes to AI, I am confident that people will do their utmost to regulate and refine this latest technology.

CNS: Are you concerned that AI might exacerbate global information asymmetry and the technological divide?

Cosgrave: Not really. I do believe that AI and free AI have the potential to disintermediate Western information systems. One could argue that the West is currently sustained by a vast propaganda system. People’s understanding of the world depends on the information they access or receive through this incredibly large and complex Western propaganda machine or system. As more and more people use non-Western AI systems to understand what is happening in the world, the Western propaganda system will be challenged.

For example, I asked (the U.S. AI tool) ChatGPT to explain how Western media operates. It said it is based on “freedom of the press” and investigative journalism. Then I posed the same question to (the Chinese AI tool) DeepSeek, and it essentially provided (American scholar) Noam Chomsky-esque perspective, saying that (Western media) operates on the premise of “manufacturing consent”. Personally, I find this more accurate.

In what kind of world will my children grow up when they no longer rely on the lens of Western media to understand how the world works? This fascinates me. They are using the best AI systems in the world, which are likely to come from China. And they are free. What will that bring? I think this is a very interesting question regarding (the reduction of) inequality. As we move into a more multipolar world, the ability of a few countries to extract huge wealth from the rest of the world without participating in fair value exchange or fair trade among equal partners will diminish. I am more optimistic about this. A multipolar world is more balanced than the world we have lived in since at least World War II.

Interactive scenarios and products from AI large model industry are on display at the 20th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, May. 23, 2024. (CNS)

CNS: What is your greatest hope for AI development, and what is its biggest challenge?

Cosgrave: Accessibility and being free. I hope that the best, most cutting-edge AI models will also be universally available for free. That would be a great thing for the whole world.

Right now, the biggest challenge is to help the United States realize that they have “destroyed” (U.S. chip giant) NVIDIA. People haven’t realized this yet. Overall, the chip ban against China is the stupidest idea in history because it essentially tells this country (China) of 1.4 billion people that you need to build the entire supply chain at “China speed”, and do it better; when you start manufacturing components or chips, you will have the entire market, the most important market.

About the Interviewee:

Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder and CEO of Web Summit. (Photo from CNS)

Paddy Cosgrave, a well-known figure in the internet technology industry in Ireland, the co-founder and CEO of Web Summit, formerly served as an ambassador for the European Innovation Council of the European Commission. Web Summit was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It is committed to hosting a series of world-class internet technology industry events around the world, including the Web Summit brands in Lisbon, Portugal; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Doha, Qatar; and the RISE tech conference in Hong Kong.

(CNS reporter: Yu Ruidong, Toronto, July 16, 2025)