Chinese tech hub Shenzhen pushes action plan to boost city’s computing resources for AI development amid global rush to create more ChatGPT-like services

2023.05.31 19:30The municipal government of Shenzhen, China’s southern technology hub, plans to boost the city’s computing resources to prop up local artificial intelligence (AI) development initiatives, as a global arms race to build ChatGPT-like technologies intensifies.Shenzhen expects to solve the current shortage in computing resources, which represent critical infrastructure to develop and train AI systems such as large language models (LLMs), by building a digital platform to coordinate the deployment and use of these assets within the city, according to an action plan published on Wednesday by the municipal government on its official WeChat account.“AI has become an important driving force of the new round of technological and industrial revolution,” the Shenzhen government’s post said. “As one of the first pilot zones for AI innovation and application in the country, Shenzhen … will strive to become a global pioneer city in AI and empower high-quality development in the city.”

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Chinese tech hub Shenzhen pushes action plan to boost city’s computing resources for AI development amid global rush to create more ChatGPT-like services
2023.05.31 19:30

The municipal government of Shenzhen, China’s southern technology hub, plans to boost the city’s computing resources to prop up local artificial intelligence (AI) development initiatives, as a global arms race to build ChatGPT-like technologies intensifies.

Shenzhen expects to solve the current shortage in computing resources, which represent critical infrastructure to develop and train AI systems such as large language models (LLMs), by building a digital platform to coordinate the deployment and use of these assets within the city, according to an action plan published on Wednesday by the municipal government on its official WeChat account.

“AI has become an important driving force of the new round of technological and industrial revolution,” the Shenzhen government’s post said. “As one of the first pilot zones for AI innovation and application in the country, Shenzhen … will strive to become a global pioneer city in AI and empower high-quality development in the city.”

In 2019, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology established the first batch of national AI pilot zones. These include the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hefei, Shenzhen and Tianjin, as well as Deqing County near Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province.

Under its action plan, Shenzhen will initiate the third phase of the city’s Pengcheng Cloud Brain project – an AI supercomputing facility that supports basic research and applications – by the end of this year.

Shenzhen’s initiative for more efficient coordination and allocation of AI computing resources reflects the urgency in China to accelerate development in this field amid US trade sanctions, which have blocked mainland firms’ access to most advanced semiconductors and chip-manufacturing equipment.

Chinese institutions have so far launched at least 79 LLMs with over 1 billion parameters, a measure of the size and complexity of a model. LLMs, the technology behind ChatGPT, are deep-learning algorithms that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate text and other content based on knowledge gained from massive data sets.

Earlier in May, the Beijing municipal government unveiled a new draft policy supporting the Chinese capital’s AI industry, which includes the provision of state-funded computing power for relevant companies.

ChatGPT sparks investment frenzy and soul searching in China

Shenzhen’s action plan will also involve building an AI supercomputing network for the Greater Bay Area, bringing together intelligent computing power of governments, enterprises and research institutions in this megalopolis that consists of Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong.

The southern tech hub pledged to support research and development on areas such as AI foundation models and chips to help achieve breakthroughs.

The city will also actively promote and encourage the application of AI technology in a range of sectors including public services, city governance and various industries. Examples include deploying robots for street sweeping and inspection, and adopting AI for image recognition and video analysis to ensure safety in fire control and building construction, according to the action plan.

China plans to set up regional AI ‘highlands’ and related tech platforms

China has put forward a series of policies, from the national to city level, to ratchet up the country’s efforts in AI, following the success of US start-up OpenAI’s ChatGPT service, which is currently not available in the world’s second-biggest economy.

The mainland plans to establish a raft of regional AI “highlands” across the country and related tech platforms, according to Wang Zhigang, China’s Minister of Science and Technology, at the opening of the 7th World Intelligence Conference in the northern metropolis of Tianjin earlier this month.

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