China is overhauling the world’s largest surveillance network with advanced AI, giving the state more automated powers to track people, analyse behaviour and predict potential unrest in real time.
An FT analysis of more than a dozen procurement documents and interviews with people familiar with the contracts found that local governments across China were deploying new AI-powered surveillance systems as Beijing pushed police forces towards so-called predictive policing.
The upgrades mark China’s most significant push in years to modernise a surveillance apparatus built a decade ago that authorities already use extensively to monitor the public, reduce street crime, suppress dissent and manage social stability.
While Beijing’s surveillance state has long been touted as cutting-edge, its systems have become constrained by ageing hardware, fragmented software platforms and limited AI functions.
It is now investing in new generations of AI-enabled cameras and software that can interpret scenes, identify patterns of behaviour and retrieve footage using written prompts, sharply reducing the need for manual police review.