Photo shows verdant mulberry parks in an ecological demonstration zone located in Desheng Town of Yizhou District in Hechi City of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Photo by Wang Xinyuan)
Detecting an abnormally high indoor temperature, the AI-enabled online platform installed on the cellphone of Wei Qingyi, head of a silkworm-raising cooperative in south China, suggested automatic ventilation for his smart cocooneries.
Instead of traditional bamboo strip-woven silkworm trays and shelves, automatic feeding lines, sensors and high-definition cameras are a common sight in cocooneries in Yizhou District of Hechi City in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
In the face of an increasing lack in labor but imperative need for industry upgrade, the district leveraged AI to turn the past labor-intensive local silkworm industry into a smart agricultural sector.
For instance, Yizhou recreated the entire procedure of local silkworm raising via "AI+the Internet of Things", allowing data to become new agricultural resource and cellphones the new farm tools.
With a big data-based cloud computing platform, the large silkworm production area in China further enhanced smart silkworm raising through automatic temperature and humidity monitoring and feeding as well.
Via a smart monitoring and alerting network, local short-term and mid-term forecast accuracy rates for significant silkworm diseases usually exceed 90 percent and 80 percent respectively.
In local cocooneries, a set of full-process digitized operations enabled by smart clustering, cocoon baking, feeding and disinfection equipment helps the district elevate rate of quality cocoons to 95 percent.
As the "Jianyitong" comprehensive service platform that integrates big data, AI and blockchain technologies offers one-stop services including silkworm cocoon trading, settlement, price trend, related production materials supply and lending, local silkworm farmers are no longer worried about underpriced sales.
Local silk businesses thus boast stabler channels for quality raw materials purchase, enabling them to build a closed industry chain loop that incorporates silk reeling, silk weaving, printing and dyeing, garment, and home textiles.
Thanks to their supreme quality, local raw silks have become the designated raw materials for western luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel, and clothes made of local silk fabrics are regularly exhibited at large international events.
Apart from "smartness" and extended silkworm raising industrial chains, an integrated industrial ecology encompassing production, processing, sci-tech, cultural tourism, and ecology has taken shape in Yizhou.
Using AI to optimize production and other procedures, local derivative industries such as natural medicines and silk culture tourism largely enlivened local economy, with the output value of mulberry twig alkaloids tablet surpassing 130 million yuan in 2025.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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