New Delhi, March 10 -- It is customary in China to give gifts during the Lunar New Year. During the most recent festivities, which ended on March 3rd, the country's artificial-intelligence industry enthusiastically embraced the tradition. Over the preceding month companies handed out coupons worth 8bn yuan ($1.2bn) to anyone willing to download and use their applications, the latest versions of which boast "agentic" capabilities that allow bots to perform tasks such as ordering a meal with a few spoken instructions.

Locally this subsidy spectacle has been dubbed the "hongbao wars", in reference to the red envelopes of cash typically handed out at new year. Already most Chinese AI companies were making their models available at no charge....