Almost 10,000 digitalised workshops and smart factories operate in China
China is home to almost 10,000 digitalised workshops and smart factories nationwide, and among these 421 have been cultivated as national-level smart manufacturing demonstration factories, 90 percent of which have applied technologies such as AI and digital twins, Xinhua reports
Photo by Xinhua
The China Internet Development Report 2024, which was released during the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, analysed China's developments, achievements and future trends in information infrastructure, digital economy, cybersecurity and law-based cyberspace governance. It noted that, by the end of 2023, the number of valid AI invention patents in China had reached 378,000, representing a year-on-year growth of over 40 percent: 1.4 times the global average growth rate.
AI continues to expand its applications across industries, with sector-specific large models empowering fields such as electronics, healthcare, and transportation. This has led to the development of hundreds of application models, driving digital transformation and upgrading traditional industries.
Also released at the summit, the World Internet Development Report 2024 said the promising outlook for future industries driven by AI has led to significant investment from the industrial circle in AI research.
In 2023, the industrial circle produced 51 prominent machine learning models, compared to just 15 contributed by the academic circle. Limited access to funding, data and computational resources in academics has caused a talent shift toward industry, further solidifying its dominance in AI research and development.