“From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China” by Collin Hogue-Spears

From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China argues that China built the world’s first governed AI ecosystem, a market in which regulation, commercial capability, and distribution developed together. Since August 2023, China has required consumer-facing generative AI services to clear government filing before public launch. The book traces how that machinery emerged and how it determines which models reach users and which companies gain distribution.

Twenty chapters across five acts span 2010 to the present, with Baidu, China’s largest search company, as the running thread. They follow Baidu’s evolution from search recommendation engines through the DuerOS voice platform and the Ernie foundation models to Ernie Bot, which launched sixteen days after China’s Generative AI Interim Measures took effect. Later chapters cover the compute squeeze and the model token efficiency discipline it forced, DeepSeek’s open-weight releases, government procurement as a distribution channel, and the book’s closing argument that one of China’s most consequential AI exports is its rules, not just its models.

From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China
Collin Hogue-Spears
Gatekeeper Press (August 2026)