Beijing crowned AI ‘capital’ as it has 30% of country’s major AI companies

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Beijing had 1,048 major artificial intelligence companies as of October 2022, representing 29% of the national total, said a report on the city’s AI development.

The report, issued yesterday by Beijing’s municipal bureau of economy and information, pointed out that Beijing has a leading AI industry chain nationwide.

Beijing has ramped up efforts to consolidate its status as an innovation hub and AI industry cluster. By the end of October 2022, the city had more than 40,000 professionals in core AI technologies, accounting for 60% of the national total.

China’s capital also has published the most papers on AI in the country, the report said, adding that Beijing is home to 30 out of the top 100 institutions worldwide ranked by the number of patents in AI.

In addition, of the 24 companies that are authorized to build the nation’s next-generation AI open platform, 10 of them have their head office in Beijing.

As an illustration of the city’s capacity to automate manufacturing with cutting-edge AI technologies, Beijing had 36 smart factories and 47 digitized workshops in 2022, the report noted.

It also outlines several areas to advance Beijing’s bid to evolve into an tech hub and digital poster boy.

For instance, Beijing will guide businesses, universities, research institutes, open-source communities and others to collaborate on breakthroughs in core AI technology innovation.

The city will also support top firms in creating an ecosystem comprising open-source frameworks and generic models of application. It will strengthen the deployment of AI computing power infrastructure to accelerate the supply of AI data.

Official support will also go to topnotch players in autonomous driving, smart manufacturing and smart city, among other areas, to aid innovation.

Meanwhile, the report points to the need for a code of ethics for the AI industry and calls for mechanisms to help introduce and cultivate high-caliber talent in AI and assist their entrepreneurial endeavor in Beijing.