AI speeds up transforming China's steel industry with more successful cases

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is accelerating the transformation of China's steel industry, making it smarter, greener, and more efficient.

Xingcheng Special Steel, an industry model manufacturer located in Jiangyin City, eastern China's Jiangsu Province, has begun using an AI-assisted detection system that can identify a 0.02-millimeter defect in a steel product within 0.1 seconds, the first in the industry worldwide.

"The furnace temperature prediction model independently developed by us can offer real-time data about temperature, pressure, composition, and air volume. Thanks to AI technology, the black boxes of blast furnaces have been 'transparent' for us. The '5G plus Industrial Internet' platform regulates thousands of processing parameters in real time, just like equipping the traditional steel factory with a thinking 'nervous system,'" said Wang Yongjian, deputy general manager of Jiangyin Xingcheng Special Steel Works company, operator of the light house factory.

In Shanghai, AI technology has enabled ZG Group, China's largest third-party steel trading platform, to handle over 10 million transaction messages daily, with the parsing accuracy rate exceeding 95 percent. It can also conduct intelligent matching of millions of traders and autonomously update over 20 million transaction messages daily.

In addition, the AI-assisted platform can simultaneously review the qualifications of 20,000 vehicles and monitor over 400,000 logistics trajectories.

"By using AI technology, the drivers' waiting time has decreased by 12 percent and carbon emissions have dropped by eight percent," said Gong Yingxin, senior vice president of ZG Group.

Currently, 29 steel enterprises across China have been designated as national intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories, with 18 recognized as outstanding such factories.

AI speeds up transforming China's steel industry with more successful cases

About 100 people died during a mass border crossing into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta last week, Ceuta President Juan Jesus Vivas told an extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on Thursday.

Vivas said about 80,000 people entered Ceuta, nearly 75,000 of whom subsequently returned voluntarily.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants remain in the enclave, leaving reception centers overwhelmed and creating a severe humanitarian emergency, he said, calling for stronger security, more reception resources and greater support from EU agencies.

European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner described the influx which involved a number of people roughly equivalent to Ceuta's entire population as "incredible".

"Nothing on this scale has happened at any EU external border in 20 years, not in a single day," Brunner told the meeting, stressing that the EU could not accept such a breach of the integrity of its external borders or a violation of the security of the Union.

Brunner said the EU should use all the leverage at its disposal, including visa policy and, more broadly, trade and development aid, to secure Morocco's cooperation on migration.

100 deaths in mass border crossing into Spain's Ceuta: local leader