The Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center’s fifth World Artificial Intelligence Conference, held from July 4 through July 7, demonstrated China’s commitment to developing a large, various, and global solution to a US-focused AI business.
More than 500 companies working on big language models, machine learning, the use of AI in smartphones, PCs and wearables, healthcare and another Iot- enabled services, professional AI, smart robots and autonomous vehicles participated in the event and showed off their products in the exhibition hall.
Most were Foreign but Amazon Web Services, Dell, GE, GM, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Qualcomm even attracted masses of customers.
Foreign participants ranged from technology giants Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei and Google to Computer maker Lenovo, telecom equipment maker ZTE, network operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, and many Iot- related software and service providers. Text- to- words, wording- to- image, wording- to- video, on- device and opened- source models were on display.
A special area of the show matched 100 start-ups from all over the world with 100 traders from government-guided funds, venture and private ownership funds, state-owned businesses, and listed companies. Areas of focus included financial, smart terminals, bright transport, the lower- altitude economy and medical applications.
A Comprehensive Connection Hub distributed information on various AI-related projects to investment banks and procurement firms. An AI Application Scenarios Comprehensive Zone hosted scenario providers from China and close to 20 other countries including the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK and Singapore. The event’s organizers estimate that more than 10 billion yuan ($ 1.38 billion ) will be spent on procurement requests overall.
The robot exhibition featured more than 20 humanoid robots from companies including Data Robotics, Deep Robotics, Robot Era, Fourier Intelligence, Unitree and Tesla, which showed off its Optimus Gen 2 inside a glass box. China’s humanoid robot open- source community was also represented. Quadruped, wheeled and dexterous fixed robots were also on display.
However, the most important thing about the state of AI in China was the presentation of large language models, their creators, and their capabilities. The Shanghai government organizers chose the following examples for their impact:
- The first model from a major state-owned company to be registered with the National Cyberspace Administration for generative AI services and algorithms, China Mobile’s” Jiutian Base Model” was the first. It is already employed by the government, healthcare, and a number of businesses, including China Railway Construction Corporation ( CRCC ) and China Ocean Shipping Company ( COSCO ).
- China Unicom’s” Yuanjing’ 1 1 M ‘ LLM system”, which is already used in network management, customer service, fraud detection, government and industry.
- Smart homes and smart city services are made possible by China Telecom’s models and cloud computing.
- The state-owned CITIC Group ( previously known as China International Trust Investment Corporation ) Group presented its” Lighthouse Factory,” an internet-based manufacturing system developed for the special steel industry and soon to be used for aluminum auto parts.
- Google and Lanzhou University collaborated to incorporate Dunhuang mural patterns into contemporary clothing by using the open-source software library for machine learning developed by Google. Unhuang is a significant archeological site on the ancient Silk Road, known for the manuscripts, murals, and Buddhist statues discovered in its numerous caves.
New large language models and applications were presented by more than 15 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Ant Group, Baichuan Intelligence, Baidu, Huawei, iFLYTEK, Kingsoft, Midu, Minimax, Model Best, SenseTime, Tencent, Transwarp, Unisound and Zhipu AI.
Many of these businesses are probably not known to most non-Chinese readers. Some, if not many, of them seem likely to become familiar names in the future. They demonstrate the rapid and extensive development of AI in China, which combines Japan-style industrial policy with a US-style start-up culture and Chinese entrepreneurship.
Joe Tsai, the chairman of Alibaba Group, claimed in an interview with the South China Morning Post that China is “possibly two years behind” leading American AI developers. He blamed this on US export restrictions, which prevent Chinese companies from buying Nvidia’s most advanced GPUs. He continued, “it is an issue in the short run and probably the medium run.”
Despite the sanctions, it might be said that China’s leading AI developers lag their US counterparts by only two or three years, despite the difficulty of calculating the gap.
In terms of the real-world application of AI in society, China may already be ahead of the US in terms of the variety of goods and services on display at the conference and exhibition in Shanghai.
More than 80 businesses devoted to the creation of AI models have been drawn to the Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center ( SMC), a business incubator, according to the China Daily. The city currently has 34 large language models.
With about 250, 000 employees and a valuation of over 380 billion yuan ($ 52 billion ), Shanghai’s AI sector leads the nation.
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