China is making a big push for widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, and the nation’s tech powerhouses are holding public events to help everyday people get OpenClaw, the viral personal digital assistant.
“It seems everyone around me – my colleagues and friends — has it,” new user Gong Sheng said as he waited to get set up. “I don’t want to be left behind.”
At a gathering in Beijing hosted on Tuesday by internet giant Baidu, Gong was one of hundreds of people lined up to get OpenClaw installed onto their laptops and phones.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday that OpenClaw is “definitely the next ChatGPT,” and the Chinese would agree. The AI agent, developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger and previously known as Clawdbot and Moltbot, is all the rage in China.
Events promoting the crustacean-themed AI tool — or “raise a lobster,” as Chinese people joke — are popping up across the country.
Like Baidu, Tencent recently organized a set-up session in the city of Shenzhen that attracted retirees and students. In Beijing, developers are regularly presenting their experience to packed crowds of wannabe users at OpenClaw meet-ups.
“OpenClaw has become really hot!” Koki Xu, who works in the legal field, said at a recent meet-up.
China has already surpassed the U.S. in adopting OpenClaw, according to American cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard. The AI agent can run anything on a computer for you, without you. You can tell it to search the web, buy plane tickets and even direct other bots.
Wang Xiaoyan said she is using it to start her own business, in what is now being referred to in China as a “one-person company” or OPC.
“Human employees need rest, but OpenClaw can run 24/7,” Wang explained.
The mania over “raising a lobster” is, in theory, exactly what the Chinese government wants. Last summer, Beijing unveiled a blueprint meant to strengthen the economy by diffusing AI across 90% of industries and all of society by 2030.
OPC’s fit into that vision.
“The rise of OPCs is directly tied to OpenClaw, enabling individuals to automate all peripheral functions,” said Tom van Dillen, managing partner at consultancy group Greenkern.
Van Dillen said marketing, finance, and administrative work were some of those functions.
“China is turning an open-source tool into national productivity infrastructure at a speed no other country is matching,” he added.
Local governments are in on the game, offering subsidies to companies that create apps using the AI tool.
“The government [is] pushing, making a direction. And so that is why the big enterprises like Tencent, Alibaba have the motivation to build OpenClaw better for normal people,” Huang Dongxu, co-founder of software provider PingCAP, told CNBC.
Yet as more ordinary Chinese get hooked, the government is pulling back.
Chinese authorities have stepped up warnings of security and data risks and instructed government agencies and companies in sensitive sectors such as banking to curb OpenClaw’s use.
New user Gong Zheng said it is difficult to predict how OpenClaw will respond.
“It’s hard for us regular people to know what access we have given it and what it has taken,” he said.