Guangzhou held an international AI roundtable conference in Nansha on June 23rd and 24th. World AI experts and practitioners from enterprises, such as, NVIDIA and iFlytek, attended the roundtable and mind mapped the development of Guangzhou and particularly Nansha.
Chen Zhiying, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou, said Guangzhou has made substantial progress since last year’s AI roundtable as the scale of its AI related industry reached 60 billion yuan in 2017.
“We have formulated a 5-year development plan for IAB industries (information technology, AI and Bio-technology), aiming to cluster AI and smart manufacturing industries in Nansha, Huangpu and Panyu,” said Chen.
Guangzhou held an international AI roundtable conference in Nansha on June 23rd and 24th.[Photo provided to Newsgd.com]
Guangzhou has also instituted several policy documents and subsidies to secure the supply of professionals, land resources and capital. For example, Nansha’s district government recently released three major documents to support the development of automated vehicles, AI and data application.
Meanwhile, AI scientists from China and abroad presented on their respective projects during the conference, and most of them said Guangzhou had created an environment conducive to their business or research.
Wu Ren is a former Baidu researcher and is the founder of NovuMind, an AI chip company based in the Silicon Valley. He said his company was among the very first to settle in Nansha. “I made the decision as soon as I saw Nansha on the map as it’s very similar to the San Francisco Bay Area with deep water ports and a great location close to major cities like Shenzhen.”
“I have been amazed by Guangzhou’s development and I plan to expand our Nansha office,” said Wu, “taking advantage of the electronics manufacturing industry here, the office will have more contact with the industrial chain.”
Der-Horng Lee, Elected Fellow at Academy of Engineering Singapore, is establishing an intelligent transport project in Guangzhou, aiming to improve the city’s transportation services through an identity-based analysis of each vehicle’s driving data.
Lee said China is the world’s biggest experimental field in which scientists can learn about a variety of people’s habits and demands, and seek solutions. “Guangzhou is a city with an open mind to new technology. I see great potential to have our projects based in Nansha in future because the district is new and has less traffic restrictions as well as a government who is very supportive,” he said.
The signing ceremony [Photo provided to Newsgd.com]
In addition, the conference saw 37 AI companies signed an agreement with the Nansha-based Guangzhou International Institute of Artificial Intelligence to locate themselves in the district. Most of these companies are directed by top AI scientists and specialize in such fields as, chip design service, transportation, urban security and healthcare.
Zhang Jin, GM of the institute, said the institute had already introduced more than 50 AI companies, and the number is set to exceed 100 by the end of this year. “In the beginning, they were mostly AI application companies. But now, we see more hardware companies and a more integral ecology is developing,” she said.
Wen Guohui, Deputy Party Chief and Mayor of Guangzhou, met the conferees after the roundtable accompanied by Chen Zhiying and Cai Chaolin.
Reported by Jasmine Yin
Edited by Wing Zhang, Simon Haywood
