Elon Musk to visit China for World AI Conference, local Boring Company launch

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will be paying a visit to China at the end of August. During the trip, Musk will be attending and speaking at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which will be held in Shanghai from August 29 to 31. The CEO will also be launching the China-based unit of his tunneling startup, The Boring Company. 

Musk’s attendance at the global AI Conference was recently shared in local Chinese media outlets. According to a report from Sina.com, the CEO will be joining over 300 more speakers at the conference, including 50 academic leaders and more than 100 industry experts. About 300 exhibitors are also expected to participate in the conference, and around 10,000 have already registered for the event. 

Some of the key topics that will be discussed at the conference are right up Elon Musk’s alley. The conference will host talks and discussions on artificial intelligence as it is utilized in technologies such as full self-driving systems, as well as environmentally-friendly solutions, to name a few. New developments in AI will be showcased at the conference as well.

While confirming his attendance at the upcoming artificial intelligence conference, Musk also announced on Twitter that his upcoming trip to China would also see the launch of The Boring Company in the country. The update comes as a pleasant surprise for followers of Musk’s tunneling venture, especially since the idea of The Boring Company being brought to China has not really been discussed much in the past. 

Launching The Boring Company in China will likely be a strategic move for Tesla. China, after all, is a country that has proven to be open to Elon Musk’s ambitious projects, as shown by the country’s initiatives to meet and even exceed the CEO’s hyper-aggressive timetable for Gigafactory 3’s construction. If The Boring Company could secure at least part of the government’s support being extended to Tesla, it would not be surprising if the tunneling startup ends up breaking ground on an ambitious project soon. 

This would be quite ironic if this were to happen, since the Boring Company’s projects in the United States have mostly been met with opposition. Even the Las Vegas transport tunnel, which only involves the construction of 0.8-mile-long tunnels, is currently receiving some skepticism from Monorail officials. Other proposed projects from the tunneling startup, such as the Chicago-O’Hare transport line, are also meeting a notable amount of skepticism. 

Gigafactory 3’s rise over the past few months proved that even Elon Musk’s hyper-ambitious timetables are not only feasible; they could also be done in a more expedited manner. Perhaps the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is looking to see if China could be the first to fully embrace his vision for The Boring Company. Either way, the presence of the tunneling startup in a country that is willing to take Musk’s aggressive plans would be very interesting.