AIGC and robots take spotlight as WAIC 2023 opens in Shanghai
A man walks toward the hall to attend the WAIC 2023 opening ceremony in Shanghai.
Generative artificial intelligence and robots took the spotlight at the opening session of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, or WAIC 2023, China's top AI event, in Shanghai on Thursday.
Speakers who included researchers, government officials, and executives from Huawei, Microsoft, SenseTime and Tesla, shared ideas on how AI boosts economies and changes people's daily lives. They talked about large language models (LLM), robots, fully autonomous driving and AI applications for industry and science.
Shanghai's top leaders including Party Secretary Chen Jining and Mayor Gong Zheng attended the opening ceremony, showing the city's determination and support to develop AI as one of three strategic industries in the city.
Shanghai's Party Secretary Chen Jining speaks at the opening ceremony of WAIC 2023.
China now has an AI industry valued at 500 billion yuan (US$69 billion), with more than 4,300 AI core firms and rapid development of intelligent chips and general large language models, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT.
With integration between AI and the manufacturing industry, China has achieved economic development in a "digital, intelligent and green" way, Xu Xiaolan, vice minister of MIIT, said at the WAIC.
Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said the company is developing AI in two directions, as computing capabilities and its integration with "hundreds of industries."
Huawei's AI systems are used in finance, manufacturing, governance, medical, railway and other industries, and for scientific research including meteorological, marine and pharmaceutical research, Hu said in his keynote speech.
Hou Yang, chief executive of Microsoft China, said the company would integrate more AI services into its tools, such as Office 365, which is used by several billion people every day. Microsoft is a major investor in ChatGPT, which has fueled an artificial intelligence-generated content or AIGC wave since last year.
Several AIGC industry alliances were founded in Shanghai during the opening session, such as the Corpus Data Alliance for Foundation Model and the Large Model Assessment and Collaborative Innovation Center.
AIGC features like ChatGPT are initially being used in office work and collaboration and would be used further in next-generation robots, which would be more powerful and intelligent, Yao Qizhi, winner of the Turing Award and dean of the Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute, told the WAIC's opening forum.
AIGC will soon be used in medical, video creation and 3D sectors, several scientists told the forum.
Tesla's Elon Musk delivers an online speech at WAIC 2023.
Tesla's Elon Musk shared his vision on robots and autonomous driving, which are both fueled by rapid AI development.
"In the future we will have a very large number of robots… It seems like it may at some point exceed a 1 to 1 ratio (of robot vs human), meaning more robots than humans," Musk said in an online speech at WAIC 2023.
It is not the first time for Musk to attend the WAIC. In 2019, Musk visited Shanghai to talk with Alibaba's Jack Ma on the future of AI.
Several "milestone" AI results were also released during the opening session.
Among them was Shanghai-based Fourier Intelligence's robot GR1, the company's first-generation humanoid robot. Commercialization has started of the robot, which stands 1.65 metres tall, can walk at 5 kilometres per hour and carry objects of 50 kilograms.
Humanoid robots were in a "fast lane" with LLM development, while commercialization was a key milestone for the industry, Fourier Intelligence reported.
Several "milestone" AI results were released at WAIC. Among them is Fourier Intelligence's robot GR1, the company's first-generation humanoid robot.
