China has welcomed another American tech billionaire, just after Elon Musk visited the country earlier this month. China’s state media claimed on Friday that President Xi Jinping met with Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This was Gates’ first trip to China since the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted his regular trips there, where Microsoft has had a presence for 20 years. Although the reason for the meeting has not yet been made public, a reporter for China’s official English-language newspaper, Global Times, provided a sneak peek into the conversation’s tone in a tweet.
Gates had previously stated his aim to work with partners addressing global health and development issues, which are among the few fields in which China and the West may still work together despite escalating geopolitical difficulties.
President Xi congratulated Gates on Friday, saying, “You are the first American friend I’ve met in Beijing this year. As the world is emerging from covid, people should move around more, communicate more, and enhance their understanding of each other.”
According to the reporter, President Xi told Gates that China is ready to collaborate extensively on technological innovation with other nations and “actively participate in and promote the response to global challenges” including climate change and public health.
Gates is in China at an interesting time. The Financial Times reported last week that Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), the software giant’s largest R&D organization outside of the United States with headquarters in Beijing, is relocating some of its top AI talent from China to Vancouver to lessen the impact of the increasingly tense bilateral relations between China and the United States.
The Biden Administration is reportedly considering imposing restrictions on American investments in advanced Chinese technologies, including AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), founded in 1998, has played a significant role in China’s AI talent pool, with several alumni establishing their own businesses, such as self-driving car startup Momenta, which has received funding from Bosch, Toyota, and General Motors.
During his visit to China, Bill Gates is expected to focus on philanthropic endeavors and avoid discussing the contentious topic of the U.S.-China tech rivalry. He announced a renewed partnership with the Beijing Municipal Government and Tsinghua University to develop advanced treatments for infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries. As part of the partnership, the Gates Foundation pledged to donate $50 million to the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute, China’s first public-private partnership on innovative research.
