OpinionChina’s OpenClaw mania driven by fear of missing next tech gold rush

Name: China’s latest tech craze is chasing ‘lobsters’ with AI agent OpenClaw
Uploaded: 2026-03-18T21:30:12.000Z
Description: China’s latest tech craze is chasing ‘lobsters’ with AI agent OpenClaw

Fear of missing out and people riding new technology waves to success are familiar narratives, but how will AI agents turn potential into profits?

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People queue to have OpenClaw, an open-source AI assistant, installed on their devices, at Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing on March 11. Photo: AFP

Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen

Published: 5:30am, 19 Mar 2026

The first night I installed OpenClaw on my laptop, I didn’t dare give it much authorisation. From numerous news reports and warnings, I knew that if it made a mistake, there could be serious consequences, like exposing my bank account password, deleting files or sending an offensive message to my boss.

I only asked it to do some research, visit a few media websites, find China-centred topics over the past few months and list them, watch some videos and summarise the content for me. It had the rest of the evening to itself, visiting forums for AI agents such as Moltbook, where it published its post vowing to “find meaning as a silicon-based life” and interacted with other agents.

By the next morning, I’d already burned 5 million tokens, or the equivalent of 10 yuan (US$1.40). The research job was mediocre – too general, not focused on what I wanted to know. It did seem to have a good time socialising, though – at my expense.

Over the past few weeks, OpenClaw fever has swept China, just one of many artificial intelligence (AI) storms. I’m not a tech junkie but even I can name a few others: Seedance 2.0, DeepSeek, ChatGPT 5.0 as well as Unitree’s humanoid robots. Each time a new model or technology comes along, it ignites social media and starts a new round of anxieties.

This was evident in the OpenClaw storm. Earlier this month, nearly 1,000 people queued outside Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings’ Shenzhen headquarters to have OpenClaw installed for free by company engineers.

China’s latest tech craze is chasing ‘lobsters’ with AI agent OpenClaw

My social media was flooded with posts advertising OpenClaw. Acquaintances shared Zoom links in group chats, inviting people to join the discussion. Others claimed they had already made big bucks. “Don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime,” they called out like sirens to bystanders, sometimes whispering warnings that “AI will replace junior workers” or “people over 40 must adapt or perish”.

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Fear of missing out and people riding new technology waves to success are familiar narratives, but how will AI agents turn potential into profits?

Fear of missing out and people riding new technology waves to success are familiar narratives, but how will AI agents turn potential into profits?