ByteDance, founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, is best known today for TikTok, its breakout short video sharing app.

Before TikTok, however, Zhang created the hugely popular AI news aggregator Toutiao, which creates a personalized news feed for users based on their reading history and personal interests.

China is a major leader AI investment and development. And with government encouragement, China's giant population produces more AI-usable data than perhaps anywhere else on earth.

Here's how China is unique in artificial intelligence development:

• The country's authoritarian political regime: The Chinese government closely controls the economy. This has allowed the Chinese Communist Party to funnel vast amounts of wealth and tax incentives to companies that develop AI products.
• By investing large sums into AI companies and capping the RoI it receives, the government has given Chinese startups access to capital found nowhere else outside of Silicon Valley.
• China's huge population: The country's massive middle class has largely embraced the conveniences and features that AI models provide, and thereby produce more useful data than any other group on earth. The more data produced, the better the technology gets.
• The country's history of political control has, arguably, created a friendly environment for companies that want to build services that require vast amounts of user data. While the debate over privacy rages in Europe, the controversy is felt far less in China.