A Chinese government policy banning after-school human tutors, intended to reduce academic pressure, had an unintended consequence: it created a market vacuum filled by AI tutors. This regulatory action unintentionally accelerated a large-scale societal experiment in AI-driven education, far outpacing adoption in the West.

Contrary to the assumption that China's elite talent programs are purely for STEM, they also recruit top humanities students. These individuals are later employed by major AI companies like DeepSeq to help models better understand human intelligence, literature, and history, acknowledging that AI development requires more than just technical skills.

A societal double standard exists for nurturing talent. While child prodigies in sports or music receive enthusiastic support and coaching, academically gifted children are often held back by parents and schools fearing they'll become "weird," ultimately wasting their potential.

While designed to reward merit, China's Gaokao system favors the wealthy. Families in elite districts or those who can afford expensive private tutoring have a significant advantage, perpetuating inequality rather than providing a level playing field for all students.

China is systematically identifying and cultivating top STEM talent from a young age through a national 'Genius Program.' By fast-tracking these students through intensive training, it has created a direct pipeline of elite engineers and scientists who go on to found and lead major tech companies like TikTok and DeepSeek.

China's greatest asset in the AI race is its human capital. It produces the world's largest number of STEM graduates, creating a deep talent pool of engineers and scientists that makes it a formidable, long-term competitor to the United States.

China identifies top talent early through a brutally selective system, not a mass-production factory. Graduates from these programs disproportionately found and lead the nation's most important tech and AI companies, directly linking this educational pipeline to its global technology ambitions.

The Gaokao produces millions of highly educated graduates, but China's slowing economy and the rise of AI cannot absorb them. This mismatch between educational output and job market capacity creates a potential powder keg of youth unemployment and social unrest.

The Gaokao rewards rote memorization and test-taking skills over creativity and boundary-pushing. This educational culture could be a long-term liability for China's ambitions to become a global innovation leader, as it doesn't cultivate the imaginative mindset seen in other tech hubs.