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

Five patients infected with the Ebola Bundibugyo virus have recovered in Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), health authorities said Sunday.

Four of the recovered patients, all medical workers, were discharged on Sunday from an Ebola treatment center in Bunia after testing negative twice for Ebola, while another patient, a laboratory worker, had already returned home, according to the DRC's National Institute of Public Health.

The DRC Health Ministry said Sunday that 263 confirmed cases had been reported in the country as of Friday, including 42 deaths among confirmed cases.

Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Jean Kaseya said on Sunday that more than 1,100 test results were still pending as of Saturday.

The recoveries came as the DRC stepped up laboratory testing and case management in affected areas. DRC Health Minister Roger Kamba said Saturday that there were no pending samples awaiting laboratory testing, stressing that response teams were continuing surveillance, contact tracing, and case verification.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was present in Bunia for the inauguration of a new Ebola treatment center and hailed the recoveries.

"We are still working on vaccines and treatments, but that does not mean that people cannot recover from Ebola," Tedros said.

5 Ebola patients recover as DR Congo reports 263 confirmed cases