By Zeyi Yang
Publication Date: 2026-03-13 12:00:00
George Zhang thought OpenClaw could make him rich, even if he didn’t really understand how the viral AI agent software worked. But he saw a video from a Chinese social media influencer demonstrating how it could be used to manage stock portfolios and make investment decisions autonomously. Zhang, who works in cross-border e-commerce in the Chinese city of Xiamen, was so intrigued that he decided to try installing OpenClaw in late February.
Zhang is one of the many people in China recently caught up in the OpenClaw craze. Workshops teaching people how to use the AI agent have popped up in cities across the country, drawing hundreds of people. Tech companies are scrambling to integrate OpenClaw into their platforms, while local governments have announced subsidies for entrepreneurs who develop products with it. Late last week, images of grandfathers and grandmothers lining up to install the software went viral on the Internet.
After renting a cloud server from Tencent and…