China's artificial intelligence (AI) industry has shown rapid growth so far this year, with that of the core AI industry expected to top a record one trillion yuan (about 141.75 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2025, according to China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). Data from CAICT indicate that there has been a significant increase in the application of large AI models in the manufacturing sector since the beginning of this year, with the proportion of use cases rising from 19.9 percent last year to 25.9 percent this year, which drives a rapid growth in the AI industry as a whole. "In 2024, the scale of China's core AI industry exceeded 900 billion yuan, with the annual growth rate reaching 24 percent. In 2025, this figure is expected to exceed 1.2 trillion yuan with further acceleration in growth," said Wei Kai, head of the AI research institute at CAICT. To promote the application of AI in specific sectors, China has introduced its first high-performance training and inference service standards in the industry. "Currently, training and reasoning represent major scenarios for the AI industry, especially when the technology is used in a coordinated manner. These standards aim to enhance professional governance and raise the efficiency of resources utilization," said Chen Zhifeng, director of the cloud computing research department at China Electronics Standardization Institute. On the consumer front, the smart economy has been fostering new consumption scenarios and upgrading consumption structures. According to big data, in the first ten months of the year, the sales of AI-driven products such as smart glasses and smartwatches grew by 23.1 percent, playing a significant role in boosting consumption and stimulating economic growth. "Establishing a public service platform for large AI models can effectively promote the open sharing of model data algorithms. The value added of China's 'Three New' Economy -- a collection of economic activities with new industries, new business formats, and new business models -- has surpassed 24 trillion yuan," said Zhang Yunming, Chinese Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology.
China's AI industry scale set to hit 1 trln yuan in 2025
