President stresses AI’s role in national growth

BEIJING: China attaches great importance to innovative development, and it considers new generation artificial intelligence (AI) as the driving force for scientific and technological development, industrial optimisation and upgrading as well as major productivity improvements while it strives to achieve high-quality development, President Xi Jinping said.

Xi made the remark in a congratulatory letter to the World Intelligence Congress, which opened in Tianjin.

The president noted that AI is having a significant and far-reaching impact on economic development, social progress and global governance.

He expressed hope that participants at this third congress strengthen exchanges, enhance consensus and step up cooperation to promote the healthy development of newgeneration AI.

Having read out Xi’s letter at the opening ceremony, Li Hongzhong, secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said that Tianjin would embrace a new era of artificial intelligence, create a new intelligence-based economy, step up AI cooperation with other countries and speed up the building of an “intelligent Tianjin”.

Li said the city will intensify efforts to boost AI applications in fields of urban management, public services, transportation and logistics, as well as in the fields of healthcare and security.

Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang said China is drafting regulations and standards for regulating AI and will publish them soon.

Wang said more effort is needed to make breakthroughs in basic AI theories and core technologies, expand the application fields of AI and further propel the deep integration of AI within various industries.

He added that these efforts form a part of a broader push to support the development of the economy as well as the improvement of people’s livelihoods. — China Daily/Asia News Network