How China is getting everyone on OpenClaw, from gearheads to grandmas
China is pushing hard for widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, and the country’s tech giants are holding public events to help ordinary people get OpenClaw, the viral personal digital assistant.
“It seems like everyone around me, my colleagues and friends, have this problem,” new user Gong Sheng said while waiting for the installation. “I don’t want to be left behind.”
At a meeting hosted by the internet giant on Tuesday in Beijing baiduGong was one of hundreds of people lining up to install OpenClaw on their laptops and phones.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday that OpenClaw is “definitely the next ChatGPT” and that the Chinese would agree. The artificial intelligence agent developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger and previously known as Clawdbot and Moltbot is very popular in China.
Events promoting crustacean-themed AI tooling (or “lobster farming,” as the Chinese joke) are springing up across the country.
Like Baidu, Tencent recently held an installation session in the city of Shenzhen, attracting retirees and students. In Beijing, developers regularly present their experiences to crowds of wannabe users at OpenClaw meetups.
“OpenClaw got really hot!” Koki Xu, who works in the field of law, said at a recent meeting.
China has already surpassed the US in adopting OpenClaw, according to American cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard. The AI agent can run everything on the computer for you without you. You can tell it to search the internet, buy plane tickets, or even direct other bots.
Wang Xiaoyan said he used it to start his own business in what is now called a “one-man company” or OPC in China.
“Human workers need rest, but OpenClaw can work 24/7,” Wang explained.
The “lobster farming” craze is, in theory, exactly what the Chinese government wants. Last summer, Beijing unveiled a plan to strengthen the economy by spreading artificial intelligence to 90% of industries and throughout society by 2030.
OPC fits this vision.
“The rise of OPCs is directly linked to OpenClaw, which allows individuals to automate entire environmental functions,” said Tom van Dillen, managing partner of consulting group Greenkern.
Marketing, finance and administrative work are some of those functions, Van Dillen said.
“China is turning an open source tool into a national productivity infrastructure at a pace no other country has matched,” he added.
Local governments are also in the game and offer subsidies to companies that develop applications using the AI tool.
“Government [is] to push, to direct. That’s why big companies like Tencent and Alibaba are motivated to make OpenClaw better for normal people,” Huang Dongxu, co-founder of software provider PingCAP, told CNBC.
But as more ordinary Chinese become accustomed to the situation, the government is pulling back.
Chinese authorities have stepped up warnings about security and data risks and ordered government agencies and companies in sensitive sectors such as banking to restrict the use of OpenClaw.
New user Gong Zheng said it was difficult to predict how OpenClaw would react.
“It’s hard for us ordinary people to know what access we gave him and what he got,” he said.
