Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing will visit France from Sunday until February 12 as President Xi Jinping's special representative at the AI Action Summit, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

Paris is set to become the epicenter of the global artificial intelligence conversation next week as world leaders, tech giants, and scientists gather for the AI Action Summit. Running from February 6 to 11, this week-long event aims to balance AI innovation, ethical development, and international cooperation.

China is sending a vice-premier in charge of industrial policies to a high-level artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Paris next week, as a small Chinese firm shakes up the global AI race. Vice-Premier Zhang Guoqing will visit France from Sunday to Wednesday as a special representative of President Xi Jinping to the AI Action Summit,

The Paris AI Action Summit comes weeks after Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s cost-efficient LLMs sent shock waves across the tech industry.

Europe also spies an opportunity to make a new bid for the AI crown. One of French President Emmanuel Macron's officials described the summit to journalists as a "wake up call" for France and Europe, adding that the bloc must not let the AI revolution "pass it by".