S. China’s Guangxi proposes China-ASEAN AI innovation cooperation center

NPC deputies from the delegation of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have put forward a motion to establish a China-ASEAN AI Innovation Cooperation Center in Guangxi during the two sessions in Beijing. It aims to foster a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future while driving high-quality economic and social development in Guangxi, the Guangxi Daily reported on Tuesday.

The motion calls for strengthened policy guidance and support to establish an artificial intelligence (AI) industry ecosystem oriented toward ASEAN. It suggests further increasing support for Guangxi's AI industry, particularly by providing more incentives for AI infrastructure development and fund allocation. These measures aim to lower innovation costs for enterprises and accelerate AI research, development, and application.

Guangxi has served as China's gateway for opening-up and cooperation with ASEAN. On February 23, Guangxi and Laos signed an agreement to jointly establish the China-Laos AI Innovation Cooperation Center, the first AI cooperation and innovation platform between China and an ASEAN country. Guangxi has also reached 20 agreements with Vietnam and Laos on AI and cross-border data exchanges, the report said.

Guangxi and ASEAN each have their own strengths in advancing AI innovation and cooperation. Multiple data centers and supercomputing centers have been established in Guangxi, providing essential infrastructure for its AI development, Liu Dingding, a veteran tech industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

In recent years, the region has also strengthened policy guidance for the AI industry. The number of active AI-related enterprises has grown rapidly in Guangxi, increasing by 19.77 percent in 2024 compared with 2023, according to the report.

As for ASEAN, it has vast potential for AI application with its large population and diverse application scenarios, while collaborating with China can help ASEAN countries quickly close the gap with industry leaders and allow the cutting-edge technology to better serve their people. The technology has enormous potential across various sectors, particularly in business, manufacturing and government services, Liu said.

This proposed cooperation center will not only serve Guangxi but could also evolve into a foundational platform for joint development between China and other countries in the field, benefiting neighboring nations in the process, Liu noted.

In January, Chinese AI developer DeepSeek officially launched its DeepSeek-R1 model. With its cost efficiency, fast inference speed, and open-source ecosystem, the company quickly gained global traction. Local governments are stepping up their efforts and investments in cutting-edge technologies, including AI.

Guangxi recently launched its "AI Plus Manufacturing" action plan, aiming to push AI-related industrial output beyond 100 billion yuan ($13.77 billion) by 2027. The initiative also seeks to drive breakthroughs in key technologies and develop 100 flagship intelligent products, among other goals.

Different regions in China are advancing AI in ways tailored to their local conditions. In Guangxi, efforts are focused on pooling key industry players and collaboratively developing a series of models for vertical domains, concentrating resources to achieve major breakthroughs. This approach addresses the region's relatively limited capital resources, leveraging them efficiently to drive AI and robotics development, Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Information and Communication Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

As a key player in global AI development, China is actively advancing its AI-Plus Initiative. This year's Government Work Report, for the second time, mentioned the initiative, noting that "we will work to effectively combine digital technologies with China's manufacturing and market strengths. We will support the extensive application of large-scale AI models and vigorously develop new generation intelligent terminals and smart manufacturing equipment, including intelligent connected new-energy vehicles, AI enabled phones and computers, and intelligent robots."

China's AI industry is set for significant growth over the next decade, solidifying its position in the global market. From 2025 to 2035, the industry's scale is projected to expand from 398.5 billion yuan to 1.73 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 15.6 percent, as CCID Consulting has estimated.