HONG KONG — Google pulled some of its core businesses out of China seven years ago, after concluding that government controls and surveillance ran counter to its commitment to a free and open internet.

Since then, as China’s online scene has grown and prospered, the American search giant has been looking for ways to tiptoe back in.

On Wednesday, it unveiled a small but symbolically significant move toward that end: a China-based center devoted to artificial intelligence. The move nods to the country’s growing strength in A.I., thanks to substantial government funding prompted by Beijing’s ambition of having a say in the technologies of the future.

Google said the center would have a team of experts in Beijing, where the company has hundreds of employees in research and development, as well as other roles. The center will be led by Fei-Fei Li, who runs Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab and leads the artificial intelligence arm of Google’s Cloud business, and Jia Li, the head of research and development for the A.I. division of Google Cloud.