State Council issues guideline on implementing AI Plus Initiative

The State Council, China's cabinet, on Tuesday released a guideline on deepening the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Plus Initiative to promote the in-depth integration of AI and various industries, vowing to achieve extensive and deep integration of AI with six key areas including sci-tech and consumption by 2027.

The guideline stipulated that by 2027, the popularization rate of applications such as next-generation intelligent terminals should exceed 70 percent while the scale of core industries of the intelligent economy should achieve a high growth rate. The role of AI in public governance should be significantly enhanced, while the open and cooperative system of AI would be continuously improved.

By 2030, the document called for AI to become a full enabler of China's high-quality development, with the penetration rate of next-generation smart terminals, smart bodies and other applications exceeding 90 percent. The smart economy would by then become an important growth driver for China's economic development, promoting technology accessibility and sharing of benefits.

Eventually, by 2035, AI will provide strong support for the basic realization of socialist modernization as China has comprehensively entered a new stage of development of the smart economy and smart society, according to the document posted on the government's website on Tuesday.

The six areas are sci-tech, industry, consumption upgrading, people's wellbeing, governance and global cooperation, in which the policy emphasized efforts in promoting AI as an international public good that benefits humanity, fostering an open ecosystem for AI capacity building based on equality, mutual trust, diversity, and win-win outcomes.

Huo Fupeng, director of the Innovation-driven Development Center under the National Development and Reform Commission, said the initiative aims to promote the extensive and deep integration of AI across all sectors and fields of the economy and society.

It will help enhance total factor productivity, and is of great significance for accelerating the development of new quality productive forces and better advancing Chinese modernization, Huo said. "The deep integration of technological and industrial innovation in the field of AI will promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, open up new avenues for strategic emerging industries and future industries, and foster and strengthen new quality productive forces," said Huo.

He said AI will also lend a helping hand in scientific social governance.

"AI technology will drive targeted policy implementation and collaborative governance, enhance scientific government decision-making and targeted public services, thereby further improving social governance capabilities. Through the empowerment of the 'city brain' (a smart city platform aiming to improve urban management with the use of big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence), the full project approval time has been sharply slashed from 9 working days to just 9.5 hours, significantly cutting the time costs of cross-departmental coordination," he said.

State Council issues guideline on implementing AI Plus Initiative

The 26th China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) opened in the coastal city of Xiamen in east China's Fujian Province on Tuesday, drawing international exhibitors and delegations to connect global investors with key Chinese markets.

The four-day fair has brought together over 1,200 government agencies and business delegations from 129 countries and regions, which includes 48 of the world's top 50 economies by GDP, while 30 international organizations are also participating.

This year's event marks the biggest ever edition of the long-running trade fair, with the total exhibition space expanding to some 200,000 square meters. It also features 14 specialized exhibition zones, showcasing investment opportunities in various promising sectors including China's "new quality productive forces", an economic strategy which stresses high-tech innovation as a new growth driver, as well as the "Silk Road Maritime" initiative, which looks to resurrect ancient sea trading routes.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Zhou Zuyi, secretary of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, said Fujian will step up efforts to establish new mechanisms for a more open economy.

"We will keep expanding institutional opening-up and actively aligning with high-standard global trade rules. We're seizing the opportunity from the pilot program to expand services trade. We're also upgrading our free trade zones, focusing on tech innovation, green development, and digital economy. All to build a more open economy, faster," Zhou said.

This year's edition has also introduced a "dual guest countries of honor" mechanism for the first time, with Finland and Saudi Arabia jointly assuming the role. Two Chinese guest provinces have also been named, with the southern Guangdong and the northwestern Qinghai Province given the honor. The fair is structured around three core thematic sections, namely "Invest in China," "China's Outbound Investment," and "International Investment," and will also see more than 40 key investment promotion events, along with nearly 100 supporting activities being held.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Pedro Manuel Moreno, the Acting Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), emphasized that increasing investment in key strategic fields is essential, saying the trade fair offers a valuable platform for exchanges.

"Strategic sectors, like AI, semiconductors, critical minerals, or clean energy now account for almost half of the value of all new investment projects. This is why I believe gatherings like CIFIT matter more than ever, because the central challenge today is no longer only to mobilize more capital. It is to connect capital to the right projects, in the right places," he said.

First launched in 1997, the CIFIT, organized by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, has become an important platform for boosting investment and facilitating global development.

Global investors, business leaders gather in Xiamen for int'l investment, trade fair