This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows a scene at a job fair held at Hunan University in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province. The two-day job fair for university graduates kicked off on Saturday, with the main venues in Hunan University and Hunan Normal University. (Xinhua/Chen Zhenhai)

As China's artificial intelligence (AI) sector accelerates, competition for talent is heating up, with local governments, technology firms and the broader market all stepping up efforts - a trend that industry analysts said will help address talent shortages while underpinning the country's push for industrial upgrading and global competitiveness.

On Sunday, Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang Province held a city-level recruitment fair themed around AI, offering more than 2,500 positions from 168 employers, according to a statement on the municipal government's official WeChat account.

About 43 percent of the roles were directly related to AI, including positions such as embodied intelligence simulation algorithm experts, reinforcement learning specialists, large model deployment engineers, robotics perception algorithm engineers and AI researchers.

The average annual salary was 160,000 yuan ($22,000), the highest on record for similar events, and some companies offered packages exceeding 1 million yuan to attract suitable candidates, the Ningbo municipal government said.

The event featured six dedicated recruitment zones covering equipment manufacturing, green petrochemicals, life and health, modern services, the marine economy and modern agriculture, aligning talent demand with local industrial strengths and future growth areas, according to the release.

Similar recruitment momentum is being seen elsewhere. On Saturday, the Liangjiang New Area in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality hosted a dedicated job fair for digital economy talent, drawing more than 50 companies and offering more than 400 positions, the China News Service reported.

The roles covered software development, product operations and AI-related fields, with some key positions offering annual salaries exceeding 500,000 yuan. More than 150 preliminary employment agreements were reached on-site, the report said.

Cross-regional platform is also staged. On Saturday, East China's Guangdong Province organized multi-city spring recruitment events in East China's Anhui Province. 

Some 169 Guangdong-based companies participated, offering nearly 10,000 positions both online and on-site, with a focus on emerging industry talent, according to Huizhou Daily, in a bid to boost the matching of high-end talent with industrial resources across the two regions.

"The current surge in demand for high-tech talent reflects the broader trajectory of China's high-quality industrial development," Xiang Ligang, a veteran industry observer and director-general of the Zhongguancun Modern Information Consumer Application Industry Technology Alliance, told the Global Times on Sunday.

He noted that the trend underscores both the vitality and long-term prospects of China's industrial sectors, while prompting local governments and enterprises to strengthen talent pipelines through more targeted recruitment efforts.

At the corporate level, competition is also intensifying. On Thursday, ByteDance announced the launch of its global campus recruitment program for frontier technology roles, with positions based in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu, as well as Singapore, Sydney, San Jose, Seattle and San Diego, according to a company statement posted on its WeChat account.

The recruitment program spans core AI fields and underlying technical areas such as large model applications, computer architecture and system optimization, AI safety, hardware development and AI programming, the company said.

Competition for cutting-edge talent is white hot. Since the beginning of 2026, leading firms have expanded AI-related hiring, with Tencent increasing technical recruitment by 36 percent, while AI-related roles account for more than 60 percent of Alibaba's hiring and more than 90 percent of Baidu's campus recruitment, according to media reports.

Salary levels have also risen notably alongside the hiring surge. A recent industry report showed that during the spring recruitment season in January and February, job postings in the new economy sector rose by 12.77 percent, with AI-related positions surging roughly twelvefold year-on-year and offering an average monthly salary of 60,738 yuan, the Shanghai Securities News, under the Xinhua News Agency, reported. 

Earlier this month, Hong Kong-listed robotics firm UBTech Robotics drew attention after announcing a global search for a chief scientist in embodied intelligence, offering an annual compensation package starting at 15 million yuan and potentially reaching 124 million yuan. 

China also holds notable advantages in AI talent development. A large pool of science and engineering graduates provides a steady supply of skilled workers, while the country's comprehensive industrial system supports a virtuous cycle of talent supply, industrial demand and innovation breakthroughs, laying a solid foundation for future leadership in the sector, Xiang noted.