At a video production base in Shenzhen, creators are using artificial intelligence to produce comic dramas, compressing months of production into weeks. The Moli OPC AI Comic Drama Base brings together directors, producers, and distributors to capitalize on turning short comics or videos into microdramas. China’s AI short-drama market was projected by DataEye to hit 40 billion yuan (US$5.9 billion) in value this year after generating more than 22 billion yuan in profit in five months, with viewers surpassing 600 million in the first half of the year. Founder Zhou Xiangxiang said content reached global audiences from Southeast Asia to Latin America. AI reduces production time and costs; Zhou noted the computing cost of an 80-minute comic drama could be as low as 25,000 yuan (US$3,694.2), while traditional animation for a similar-length project could cost at least 160,000 yuan, per a February Guosen Securities report. Producers in China said ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 video generation model had become a preferred tool due to high efficiency and low cost, despite backlash from the US film industry over intellectual property disputes. Zhou, who also runs a production studio, said her team uses Seedance more frequently because it is easier to learn, allowing standardized training for a growing pool of AI content creators.