Seizing the opportunity window of artificial intelligence in China: Towards an innovation policy mix framework for emerging technologies from an evolution perspective

China's innovation policies for artificial intelligence (AI) are widely considered as having made a remarkable achievement, which offers us a pertinent case to explore how to design and implement an effective innovation policy mix for an emerging technology. On the basis of literature on the characteristics of emerging technologies and the typology of innovation policy, this paper proposes a four-dimensional framework. It then conducts a categorical principal component analysis and a k-prototype cluster analysis by using data on 116 China's AI policy programmes from 2009 to 2021, which show that the characteristics of the innovation policy mix can be captured by the four dimensions. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that China's AI innovation policy mix evolves following the changing characteristics of AI technology over time. This paper has some implications for designing AI innovation policy mixes in other countries and designing innovation policy mixes for other emerging technologies.