As of January 2026, the number of artificial intelligence enterprises in China has exceeded 6,200, with 29% of the newly founded enterprises in the past two years engaged in large AI models. In 2025, the scale of China’s core AI industry surpassed 1 trillion yuan. Large AI model technology is driving the upgrade of traditional decision-making to data-and-model-driven intelligent decision-making. Behind these impressive figures lies a profound transformation of China’s AI industry from technological R&D to value realization. Today, large AI models have long broken free from the single dimension of “chat and dialogue” and permeated every aspect of production and daily life like capillaries. They have taken root in scenarios such as manufacturing workshops, farmlands, and public services, reshaping the development logic of thousands of industries with tangible innovations.
Accelerate Digital Upgrade of Production Lines
In the manufacturing sector, the upsurge of integrated innovation of “AI + Manufacturing” has swept across China. As of the start of 2026, the number of smart factories in China has exceeded 30,000. Large AI models have boosted average production efficiency by 22.3% and shortened R&D cycles by nearly 30%. On the production line of new energy vehicle charging piles in Qingdao, Shandong, an intelligent system embedded with a large model enables real-time monitoring and intelligent management of the charging process, accurately predicting equipment failures. Jiangsu has built a “Model Supermarket” with nearly 100 open models covering niche scenarios such as industrial quality inspection and equipment monitoring, serving more than 2,500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and making digital upgrading no longer an “exclusive right” of large enterprises. The national initiative of the Action Plan for the Integrated Empowerment of Industrial Internet and Artificial Intelligence has further driven the accelerated deployment of key industries such as raw materials and equipment manufacturing. It plans to promote no less than 50,000 enterprises to carry out transformation and upgrading of new industrial networks, enabling AI empowerment to evolve from sporadic breakthroughs to large-scale popularization.
Fuel Green and Intelligent Operation
In the fields of energy and infrastructure, large AI models have become the “intelligent engine” for green development and safe operation and maintenance. In the integrated hydro-solar-wind power project in the Wujiang River Basin, the “Huadian Smart” large model optimizes energy allocation through an intelligent dispatching system, raising the improvement rate of cascade hydropower utilization from the 10-year average of 5.8% to 10.8% and increasing clean power supply by a substantial margin annually. The “Tianhe” large model developed for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has even equipped the thousands-of-li water system with an “intelligent brain”. In water quality protection scenarios, it has shortened algae identification time from hours to seconds, and can also predict diffusion trends and generate disposal plans. In engineering inspections, UAVs and robotic dogs equipped with large AI models form a “sky-ground integrated” perception network, achieving a stable hidden danger identification accuracy of over 98% and realizing a qualitative leap from “manual inspection by eyes and legs” to “intelligent perception”. At photovoltaic power stations in Northwest China, AI models accurately predict light intensity by combining meteorological data, improving the power generation efficiency of photovoltaic panels by 15% and effectively solving the industry pain point of unstable new energy power generation.
Reshape Daily Production and Life
Agriculture, which once relied on the whims of the weather, is now achieving “science-based farming” with the help of AI technology. In the experimental fields of the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Hainan, 5 sensors act as “intelligent eyes” and can complete data collection of germplasm materials within one hour. The intelligent breeding platform built on the basis of large AI models combines massive crop breeding data with big data algorithms, shortening the traditional breeding cycle of 8-10 years to 3-5 years and enabling breeders to respond more quickly to extreme disasters and climate change. This “AI + Breeding” model not only improves breeding efficiency but also fortifies the technological barrier for national food security, endowing the time-honored agriculture with modern vitality.
In the field of public services, scenario innovations are thriving. The personal service AI assistant launched in Hangzhou breaks down barriers between Apps, enabling users to complete complex tasks such as food ordering and travel planning without app switching. It also accesses 50 public and government services, providing users with optimal solutions within 3 minutes. This marks the accelerated evolution of AI from “chat and dialogue” to “real-time service delivery”. In the financial sector, financial intelligent agents such as “Zhijin” are deeply integrated into scenarios including wealth management and compliance review, making services more accurate and secure. In the medical field, AI-aided diagnosis systems raise the level of primary medical care and alleviate the difficulty of accessing medical services. In the education sector, personalized learning platforms push learning resources according to students’ characteristics, realizing “teaching students in accordance with their aptitude”.
From laboratories to the frontlines of production, from cities to rural areas, and from infrastructure to public services, the application scenarios of large AI models continue to expand. In the future, artificial intelligence will play a greater role in fostering new productive forces, letting the light of intelligence illuminate the path of innovation for thousands of industries.
