Moscow, January 30, 2025 – The Europe Today: Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov has attributed China’s rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) to its highly competitive education system, emphasizing the country’s strong foundation in mathematics and programming.
In a statement on Wednesday, Durov described China’s education system as fostering “fierce competition” among students, reminiscent of the “highly efficient” Soviet model. He contrasted this with Western education systems, where competition is often minimized to avoid hurting students’ feelings.
“Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Eliminate the losers — and you eliminate the winners,” Durov wrote in a post celebrating the Chinese New Year. He argued that shielding students from competition may appear compassionate, but reality does not operate that way.
“Reality, unlike well-meaning school policies, does have public grades and rankings — whether in sports, business, science, or technology,” he stated. Removing transparency in student performance, he warned, can make education feel meaningless for ambitious students.
Durov cited the success of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that has developed an advanced open-source reasoning model without access to cutting-edge US chips and at a fraction of the cost. He pointed out that China’s AI dominance is rooted in decades of academic excellence, particularly in international mathematics and programming competitions.
China leads the US in cumulative medal counts in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) with 185 gold medals to 151 and in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) with 102 to 68. While the US narrowly defeated China in the 2024 IMO by just two points, some critics attributed this victory to the disproportionately high number of Asian students on the American team.
Durov warned that unless the US education system undergoes significant reforms to encourage competition and recognize excellence, China’s technological dominance appears inevitable.