Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss, described President Xi Jinping as "a great leader" in an interview broadcast on Chinese state television as Xi began a state visit to the US.
"He seems like a great leader," Musk said.
Musk said Chinese AI labs were "generally outstanding" given the computing power available to them, and were delivering strong results on performance per unit of compute.
He said US and Dutch bans on exporting advanced chips and lithography equipment, the machines used to print circuits on to chips, had constrained Chinese labs.
But he predicted China would overcome those limits in about two to three years.
Musk called Tesla's Shanghai factory "a gem" and credited its output to China's manufacturing strengths.
The plant exported more vehicles than it delivered in China for the first time this year.
It has produced more than 4.5 million vehicles, over 45% of Tesla's total output to date.
Musk linked his AI comments to his own businesses, saying SpaceX continues to work on its Grok model, which is now available in Tesla vehicles.
He also forecast at least one billion humanoid robots within 10 years, 10 billion within 15 years and 100 billion within 20 years.
The interview aired as Musk was expected to attend a White House state dinner, where Xi and President Donald Trump are due to discuss AI safety measures.
