# compute shortage

China’s New Year Becomes AI’s Debut Season: Giants Gamble Billions and Workers Guard the Servers

China’s tech giants turned the Spring Festival into a high-stakes field test for generative AI, deploying billions in marketing and integrations while backend engineers worked through the holiday to prevent compute-driven outages. The event may mark a pivot from model-building to mass application, accelerating consolidation and everyday use of AI across social, local and entertainment services.