CNBC: China's Tech Giants Race to Deploy OpenClaw as 'Lobster Special Forces'

CNBC published a detailed look at how China’s largest tech companies are rapidly adopting OpenClaw, with major players launching competitive products around the open-source agent in what amounts to a land grab across the Chinese tech ecosystem.

Tencent: “Lobster Special Forces”

Tencent announced a full suite of AI products built on OpenClaw, officially calling them “lobster special forces” — and positioning them as compatible with WeChat, China’s dominant superapp with over a billion users. The suite was unveiled alongside Zhipu AI’s own local version of OpenClaw, which ships pre-installed with over 50 popular skills via “one-click installation.”

ByteDance’s cloud unit Volcano Engine launched ArkClaw, a web-browser-based version designed to eliminate the local setup complexity that has historically been a barrier for non-technical users.

China Usage Surpasses U.S.

For the first time, OpenClaw usage in China has surpassed the U.S., according to American cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard. This is a notable milestone for a tool that originated with an Austrian developer and spread initially through English-speaking tech communities on Telegram and Discord.

The Business Opportunity

Chinese AI models released this year have narrowed the gap with U.S. rivals while offering capabilities at a fraction of the price — significantly lowering the operating cost for users running OpenClaw. According to OpenRouter, the top three AI models used by OpenClaw users on its marketplace in the past month were all Chinese companies, with combined usage double that of Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude combined.

Community-Driven Adoption

The piece highlights a grassroots dimension: Chinese social media platforms have been flooded with posts about company-organized installation events, with some organizers handing out red lobster plush toys. Tencent held a free in-person OpenClaw setup session in Shenzhen that drew hundreds of attendees.

As one Shenzhen startup CEO told CNBC: “I have friends who are not even in the tech industry … they are doing this, they are also running it.”