On March 24, the Ministry of Science and Technology officially approved the construction of a national new generation artificial intelligence (AI) innovative development pilot zone in Changsha City. The pilot zone will focus on major national strategies and Changsha’s economic and social development needs, give priorities to intelligent equipment, smart factories, and intelligent connected vehicles, and promote original innovation and key core technology research and development, so as to explore new paths and mechanisms for the development of new generation AI and provide the replicable and popularized experience for the industry.

According to the approval documents, Changsha City should give full play to the important role of AI in building Hunan Province into a hub of technological innovation with core competitiveness, and set an example in promoting high-quality development in central China and the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Changsha government will leverage its scientific and educational resources and industrial base to strengthen the research and development of AI technologies and the application of innovations.  It will give full play to the advantages of science and education resources in the field of artificial intelligence, accelerate intelligent infrastructure improvement, tap into computing power and data resources, strengthen technology integration, application, and demonstration, as well as develop intelligent industrial clusters.

In addition, Changsha will further strengthen institutional innovation and build a policy environment conducive to the healthy development of AI. It will carry out AI policy pilot and explore new mechanisms to support AI innovation and development in terms of industry standards, intellectual property, talent pool, industry-education integration, and commercialization of technological research results. The city will implement AI governance and establish AI ethical norms. AI social experiments will be launched to blaze new paths for manufacturing transformation and social governance in the intelligent era. 

Changsha boasts good basic conditions to build a national new generation AI innovative development pilot zone. Changsha's economic aggregate ranks seventh among the provincial capital cities nationwide, and its economic growth rate has ranked among the top for years. There are three universities listed in the “Project 985”, including the National University of Defense Technology, Central South University, and Hunan University. There are more than 20 scientific research institutions engaged in R&D and application of AI technology and equipment.

Currently Changsha has seven one-hundred—billion-yuan industrial clusters involving electronic information, new materials, construction machinery, and automobiles and parts. There are more than 2,400 core and AI-related enterprises. In 2020, the scale of core AI industry reached 10 billion yuan, and the scale of AI-related industries hit 45 billion yuan.

Hunan government attaches great importance to AI industry development, and has issued a series of policies to support the industry from the provincial level to Changsha city level and district level.

Changsha City, under the guidance of the Hunan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, is stepping up efforts to formulate a number of policies and action plans for the construction of the pilot zone, centering on the goal of building Changsha into a new AI hub, and taking initiatives to optimize AI innovation ecosystem.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn