Chip, AI integration and development boost digital transformation
Chip design and development are turning more artificial intelligence applications into reality, to boost digital transformations in Shanghai and nationwide.
They include robots to plant trees in the desert, intelligent inspection and maintenance systems for roads and bridges, smart fatigue and pressure tests for airplanes and China-developed GPU chips with AI features to debut next year.
All those features and applications are backed by more intelligent and powerful chips by firms that will participate in the World Artificial Intelligence Conference or WAIC, China's top AI even, that opens next month in Shanghai.
Based on China's Kunpeng chip, a complete ecosystem covering technology verification, application demonstration, a developer community and talent training has been established, said Eco-Bay, operator of the Shanghai Kunpeng Innovation Center.
A "desert robot" is displayed in an exhibition hall of the Kunpeng center in Xuhui District's AI Tower, also a WAIC venue.
A "desert robot" featuring China's Kunpeng chip.
Developed by undergraduate students from the East China Normal University, the robot can plant trees in a desert automatically 24 hours a day, seven days a week, supported by the Kunpeng chip and technology such as satellite positioning, the Internet of Things, automatic route planning and cloud control.
It has already been used in the Ala Shan Desert in West China.
The Kunpeng center has 240 industrial partners in various industries. Another application is a road and bridge maintenance system with sensors and automatic inspection algorithms, which can halve labor costs.
The center is now offering talent training and career planning consulting for university students in Shanghai.
Chip designer Biren Technology will launch a general-purpose GPU chip for servers.
The chip features machine-learning, graphics rendering and special AI optimizations from the Shanghai-based firm founded in 2019.
It may help the domestic industry to fill the gap in the AI chip field behind US tech giant Nvidia, achieving breakthroughs in high-end general-purpose intelligent computing chips.
By March, Biren had raised 4.7 billion yuan (US$723 million) in several rounds of financing.
AI and chips are strategic industries in Shanghai's development blueprint. They are closely linked and will boost Shanghai's digital upgrade and transformation, said Wu Jincheng, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization.
In Shanghai, China Mobile and the Aircraft Strengthen Research Institute recently displayed 5G and AI applications to support China-developed airplane research.
5G and AI featured robots work in an airplane cabin
With AI and 5G, huge volumes of images and data can be collected and analyzed automatically instantly.
The real time and intelligent systems can greatly save labor cost and time.
They are the new "growth engines" to speed up China's home-grown aircraft development.
