The Sanctions That Backfired: How China’s Tech Crackdown Created Its Most Dangerous AI City
Hangzhou’s tech ecosystem didn’t die under China’s crackdown — it evolved. By pruning consumer-internet bloat, the city’s Alibaba alumni network pivoted hard to foundational AI. The result: open-source models from DeepSeek that rival OpenAI, proving that regulatory pressure and Western sanctions inadvertently fertilize the most dangerous deep-tech sectors.