China has approved its 15th Five-Year Plan [PDF] setting out the country’s economic, education, social, and industrial priorities through to 2030. As might be expected, there is a significant number of references to AI, with the technology mentioned in several contexts. AI is grouped alongside quantum computing, biotechnology, and energy as paths that are to be pursued as part of the country’s strategic science policy. The document calls for more work in developing high-performance AI chips and the software to support them in this context. There’s also a commitment to academic and industry research on new model architectures and the core algorithms underpinning them. Development to communications technologies such as satellite systems, 5G+ (sometimes referred to as 5G-A or 5G Advanced) and 6G networks is to support AI workloads as part of a broader push to improve the country’s infrastructure for data transmion, general communication and data processing.…