Platform power with Chinese characteristics: AI, governance and the metaverse economy in China’s digital policy landscape

China’s approach to the metaverse reveals a distinctive governance model in which immersive technologies, AI systems and platform infrastructures are shaped by broader political and regulatory priorities. While global debates often describe the metaverse through ideas of decentralization and user autonomy, the Chinese configuration develops within a system that links commercial innovation to data security, ideological guidance and state supervision. This article examines how major platforms, including Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu and NetEase, integrate AI-driven avatars, spatial interfaces and synthetic media into environments that remain accountable to national laws on cybersecurity, personal data protection and algorithmic governance. Adopting a qualitative, multi-layered methodology that combines policy document analysis, platform case studies and interpretive media analysis, this study shows how virtual identity, biometric data and immersive advertising are managed within a framework designed to balance economic growth with cultural and political stability. The four platforms were selected to represent distinct configurations of immersive experience and AI deployment: a state-aligned infrastructure (XiRang), a virtual events specialist (Yaotai), a broad communication and gaming integrator (Tencent) and a domestic–global hybrid (ByteDance/Douyin). The findings suggest that China’s metaverse is not an open virtual frontier but a curated extension of domestic governance structures, constituting an alternative trajectory to dominant western narratives about immersive digital ecosystems. The article contributes a comparative, policy-oriented lens to debates on platform power, AI governance and the geopolitics of digital infrastructure.