Photo handout via Xinhua shows the "MAZU" system at the Pakistan Meteorological Department on August 17, 2026.
For millennia, as her believers believe, the traditional Chinese sea goddess Mazu has been blessing safe voyages. Now, Chinese meteorological early-warning solutions named after her are helping more countries prevent meteorological disasters.
"MAZU", released by the China Meteorological Administration at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), is a set of China's homegrown AI-enabled meteorological solutions featuring universal multi-hazard early warning, alerting and zero-gap coverage.
Supporting cloud-based trials in more than 40 countries, "MAZU" has been applied in countries including Pakistan, Ethiopia, the Solomon Islands, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Djibouti, rapidly expanding its global presence.
As the first set of solutions under the UN Early Warnings for All initiative, "MAZU" integrates AI-based meteorological early-warning models, Fengyun meteorological satellite data, multi-source monitoring products and cloud computing power.
In May this year, "MAZU" was recommended by the World Meteorological Organization at the 11th Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals held at UN headquarters in New York.
Unsurprisingly, "MAZU" caters to the demand for both menu-style solution offerings and highly flexible customized solutions to help relevant countries prevent meteorological disasters caused by climate change.
In Pakistan, where monsoons and rainstorms usually cause torrential floods, an early-warning system co-developed by China and Pakistan was formally embedded in relevant platforms of Pakistan's meteorological authority.
In Ethiopia, Chinese experts leveraged the integration of data from China's Fengyun meteorological satellites and local meteorological stations to help local weather forecasters generate high-precision nowcasts via the Fenglei and Fengqing AI models.
In Sri Lanka, the meteorological bureau of southeast China's Fujian Province is assisting the country in achieving high spatiotemporal resolution precipitation and temperature forecasting.
Apart from the application cases of "MAZU", nearly 1,000 people from more than 100 developing countries and regions have come to China to receive technology training focused on early warning.
As China is a crucial partner of the Early Warnings for All initiative, its platforms, satellites and AI models have helped dozens of countries enhance their early-warning capacities, noted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the 2026 WAIC.
Such a mode of cooperation, involving technology transfer, joint R&D and local capacity building to help developing countries better protect their people, is exactly what the world needs now, added Guterres. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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