Nearly ten thousand digitalized workshops, smart factories built nationwide by China: report

HANGZHOU, Nov. 21 -- China has constructed almost ten thousand digitalized workshops and smart factories nationwide, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies on Thursday.

Among these, 421 have been cultivated as national-level smart manufacturing demonstration factories, 90 percent of which have applied technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins, said the China Internet Development Report 2024, which was released during the ongoing 2024 World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit, being held in the ancient water town of Wuzhen in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The report also noted that by the end of 2023, the number of valid AI invention patents in China had reached 378,000, representing year-on-year growth of over 40 percent -- 1.4 times the global average growth rate.

Also released at the summit, the World Internet Development Report 2024 said the promising outlook for future industries driven by AI has led to significant investment from the industrial circle in AI research.

In 2023, the industrial circle produced 51 prominent machine learning models, compared to just 15 contributed by the academic circle. Limited access to funding, data and computational resources in academics has caused a talent shift toward industry, further solidifying its dominance in AI research and development.

The two reports mentioned above have since 2017 been released for eight consecutive years as outcomes of the WIC.

Themed "Embracing a People-centered and AI-for-good Digital Future -- Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace," the summit kicked off on Wednesday and is scheduled to conclude on Friday.