Why were these five cities selected as the National Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Application Pilot Zones?

[The regional development of artificial intelligence in China is highly coordinated and mutually promoted with the national regional strategy, and the convergence of regional factors accelerates the leadership of the artificial intelligence industry. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have become the three major regional engines for the development of artificial intelligence in my country, with the number of artificial intelligence companies accounting for 83% of the country. The Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration and the Yangtze River Middle Reaches urban agglomeration have also demonstrated the regional vitality of artificial intelligence development, and industrial agglomeration areas are beginning to emerge. ]

In the first working week of the Year of the Ox, the number of national artificial intelligence innovation and application pilot zones expanded.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released the second batch of pilot areas after Shanghai (Pudong New Area), Shenzhen, Jinan and Qingdao, and issued a notice to support the establishment of national artificial intelligence innovation and application pilot areas in Beijing, Tianjin (Binhai New Area), Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, etc. So far, the number of national artificial intelligence pilot areas has increased to 8.

He Renlong, chief expert and vice president of the Shanghai Institute of Emerging Information and Communication Technology Applications, said in an interview with Caixin that the AI ​​(artificial intelligence) pilot zone is more focused on applications. China has the greatest advantage in industrial scale. For example, my country's manufacturing industry accounts for 28% of the world's total, ranking first in the world. Therefore, AI can penetrate into the real economy and achieve deep integration with the real economy, and can also serve the transformation and upgrading of the real economy.

"From the first batch of three pilot zones to the second batch of eight, the four major strategic regions of the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and Chengdu-Chongqing have been covered geographically," said He Renlong.

The "China's New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Report 2020" released in October last year shows that China's regional development of artificial intelligence and the national regional strategy are highly coordinated and mutually promoted, and the convergence of regional factors accelerates the leadership of the artificial intelligence industry. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have become the three major regional engines for the development of artificial intelligence in my country, with the total number of artificial intelligence companies accounting for 83% of the country. The Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration and the Yangtze River Middle Reaches urban agglomeration have also demonstrated regional vitality in the development of artificial intelligence, and industrial agglomeration areas have begun to show regional leadership and synergy.

Application innovation accelerates industry implementation

From the perspective of level, AI mainly consists of three layers: basic layer, technical layer, and application layer. Europe and the United States started early and invested heavily in the basic layer, while China has seen the emergence of many companies in the application layer and technical layer. At present, innovation in artificial intelligence application scenarios is also becoming an important way for China to accelerate industrialization and technological iteration.

In 2019, the Beijing Winter Olympics, Daxing Airport, Hangzhou Brain and other places promoted a collection of artificial intelligence application scenarios. Representative comprehensive application scenarios and rich industrial scenarios in various fields have created a broad soil and a good environment for artificial intelligence technology innovation and rapid commercialization. In the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, artificial intelligence technology accelerated its deep integration with transportation, medical care, education, emergency response and other fields, helping to achieve remarkable results in epidemic prevention and control.

The Global Artificial Intelligence Strategy and Policy Observation (2020) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that the foundation of the global artificial intelligence industry is becoming more and more solid in terms of industrial ecology, such as technological breakthroughs and the gradual enrichment of application products. The application field is gradually expanding from the tertiary industry to the primary and secondary industries.

At the same time, the development of the artificial intelligence industry also has a good policy environment. The "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to promote the deep integration of the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence with various industries and promote the development of advanced manufacturing clusters.

At the 2020 China Artificial Intelligence Summit held at the end of last year, Liu Liehong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that artificial intelligence is integrated with 5G and the industrial Internet. At present, the scale of my country's core artificial intelligence industry has exceeded 100 billion yuan, the number of enterprises has exceeded 2,600, and the industry continues to grow.

In terms of industry scale, IDC predicts that the global artificial intelligence market will be worth US$156.5 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 12.3%. According to the calculation of the Data Research Center of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the scale of China's artificial intelligence industry will be RMB 303.1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 15.1%.

Why choose these 5 places?

The five pilot zones added this time each have different focuses in the industrial field.

For example, the Beijing National Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Application Pilot Zone should combine with the overall deployment of the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, give full play to the multiple advantages of technological originality, industrial ecology, talent base, and development environment, accelerate the research and development of core algorithms, basic software and hardware, and other technologies, accelerate the construction of intelligent infrastructure, and create a world-leading artificial intelligence innovation source.

Specifically, we should focus on key areas such as intelligent manufacturing, intelligent connected vehicles, smart cities, and the "Tech Winter Olympics", accelerate the construction and opening of deep application scenarios of artificial intelligence, optimize the governance environment, continue to promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and the real economy, and create a demonstration zone and reform pilot zone for high-quality development of super-large smart cities. As one of the regions with the strongest scientific and technological foundation, the most concentrated innovation resources, and the most active innovation entities in China, Beijing has more than 1,000 scientific research institutes and nearly 30,000 national high-tech enterprises, and ranks first in the world in effective invention patents in the field of artificial intelligence.

It is worth noting that the positioning of the pilot zone for Beijing is to be combined with the overall deployment of the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center.

At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on January 20, Li Meng, Vice Minister of Science and Technology, said that the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center will advance key core technology research in frontier areas of new scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation such as quantum information, artificial intelligence, blockchain, life and health.

Beijing's "14th Five-Year Plan" proposal points out that it is necessary to accelerate the development of a modern industrial system. It is necessary to promote the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, and continuously enhance the competitiveness of "Beijing Smart Manufacturing" and "Beijing Services". It is necessary to vigorously develop strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, new energy smart cars, medical health, and new materials, proactively plan future industries such as quantum information, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, satellite Internet, and robots, and cultivate new technologies, new products, new formats, and new models.

The Tianjin (Binhai New Area) National Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Application Pilot Zone will focus on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development strategy, meet practical needs such as industrial intelligent transformation, government service upgrades and improvement of people's livelihood quality, give full play to the policy advantages of the China (Tianjin) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and promote breakthrough development in key areas such as intelligent manufacturing, smart ports and smart communities.

The Hangzhou National Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Application Pilot Zone aims to give full play to the city’s basic advantages in digital governance, advanced manufacturing, etc., and further deepen the application of artificial intelligence technology in urban management, intelligent manufacturing, smart finance and other fields.

In recent years, Hangzhou has made the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence an important part of its efforts to build the "first city of digital economy" and "first city of digital governance." Data shows that Hangzhou has 523 artificial intelligence manufacturing enterprises and typical enterprises above designated size, and its artificial intelligence computing power and number of patents rank first and second in the country, respectively, and its industrial competitiveness ranks in the first echelon in the country.