SHANGHAI, July 9 (Xinhua) -- With both hands off the steering wheel, a man sits in the driving seat as the car moves steadily along a 2.8 km section of road, passing a total of 12 intersections.
The man is participating in a session designed to showcase the latest automatic driving technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) at the ongoing World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
China ranks first globally in its number of AI patents, with a continuously expanding AI core industry and the deepening integration of the technology with the real economy, said Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xiao Yaqing at the forum.
According to a report on China's AI development released earlier this year, nearly 390,000 AI patent applications were filed in China over the past 10 years, accounting for 74.7 percent of the world total.
The WAIC, showcasing innovative products brought by approximately 300 major AI companies, exhibits the wide applications of AI in shops, streets, factories and city management, and even in detecting unknown stars.
Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of home appliance giant Gree Electric Appliances, said the company has used AI to achieve a much higher level of automation in factories.
"A plant that used to need nearly 10,000 workers now only takes 1,000 people," said Dong, adding that digital infrastructure has brought "disruptive" changes to product precision, quality and efficiency.
At the exhibition, Chinese tech giant Tencent launched a project together with the National Astronomical Observatories, using AI technology to spot pulsars.
The company's computer vision technology and cloud computing can help China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope to process its huge quantities of received data and find pulsar clues through visual AI analysis.
Xu Huili, director of Shanghai's city management center, said AI enabled the city to better guide large crowds to a light show at the city's iconic Huangpu River, which saw over 3.4 million people swarm to its banks in five days.
"We are committed to handling things efficiently so that citizens can have a greater sense of gain and feel safer," said Xu.
The conference also features more than 10 AI chips, an area that is seeing the increasing presence of Chinese players.
"We design the most reliable underlying architecture possible, with the lowest possible supply chain adjustment costs, to achieve reliable arithmetic performance," said Diao Shijing, chairperson of the Shanghai-based chip developer Iluvatar CoreX.
Chips developed by the company have been applied to multiple mainstream servers in China, showing good compatibility, Diao noted.
"It is important to develop the fundamentals for other technologies to flourish. This is especially important for China's industrial development in today's complex international environment," said Hu Houkun, rotating Huawei chairman, at the conference. "We should vigorously develop technology to enhance the resilience of the development of the AI industry." Enditem
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