The photo, taken on July 2, 2025, shows the exhibition area of the 2025 Global Digital Economy Conference held in Beijing, the capital of China. [Photo/Xinhua]
When drawing a steel factory, words like “heavy,” “smoky,” and “hard.” often come to mind. However, technical breakthroughs prove that the iron and steel industry is smart and refined thanks to the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
One of China's largest steel manufacturers, Shogan Group is leading the way with AI-powered visual systems that convert the entire steel manufacturing process from labor-driven to model-driven. With this cutting-edge technology in place, Steel Giant has increased production efficiency by over 20% and reduced defects by 35%.
The AI-powered system was selected as one of the top 10 benchmark applications at the 2025 Global Digital Economy Conference, exemplifying its shift towards digital and intelligent industrial transformation, and was wrapped in Beijing on Saturday. During the event, business leaders and industry representatives discussed the growing impact of AI across the industry, highlighting the broader push towards China's smart manufacturing.
“For a company of our size, our number one priority in the face of the ongoing AI revolution is to explore how this technology can provide better solutions to our challenges and how it can improve quality, increase efficiency and reduce costs.”
“Traditional visual techniques have been widely used for high quality checks, but they are still lacking to address some issues,” Jiang said. “This is why we use AI for data labeling, model training, and detection of defects and anomalies.” He said in recent years BoE has also developed its own automated decision-making system, which has already been used in production.
The company is actively looking for ways to integrate AI into display panel manufacturing. This is a comprehensive process that includes quality inspection, monitoring and analysis, defect repair, and equipment maintenance. With the help of AI, BOE has effectively improved graphics processing efficiency, shortened defect handling cycles, and reduced labor costs.
Similarly, many companies across the country are accelerating their digital transformation efforts. According to the China Internet Development Report 2024, the country currently has nearly 10,000 digitized workshops and intelligent factories. Of these, over 400 people are recognized as national benchmark factories for smart manufacturing using technologies such as AI and digital twins.
Industry insiders highlighted that the cost of large models has dropped sharply over the past year, creating favorable conditions for applying AI technology. Baidu vice president Ruan Yu noted that as costs continue to decline, large AI models have become a core productivity tool for companies with increasing numbers of companies.
According to Zhang Di, vice president of Kuaishou Technology and head of Kling AI, AI Video Generator Technology continues to evolve. By providing an interactive and realistic environment, Zhang said it will further enhance the development of the industrial internet and accelerate digital transformation in manufacturing and other traditional industries.
In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a wide range of measures to accelerate the innovation of AI and promote its application, with the aim of supporting new industrialization and development of the industrial sector.
“The industrial sector is the foundation of China's economy and features a wide range of diverse scenarios. This is a key area of AI applications,” Zhao added that the ministry will continue to advance adoption of AI and organize regular initiatives to integrate AI with new industrialization and promote model solutions for AI applications. These efforts aim to ensure that technology supports the real economy more effectively, Zhao said.
Gu Weixi, a researcher at the Chinese Industrial Internet Academy, noted that there are some challenges remaining in AI applications in the industrial sector. For example, AI service providers don't have enough channels to reach their customers, while manufacturers have limited knowledge of cutting-edge AI technologies.
To address these challenges, several analysts are seeking better integrity between supply and demand. This reduces costs and improves performance while increasing the efficiency of the industrial sector.
“China is equipped with a comprehensive industrial category that offers access to diverse application scenarios and rich data,” says Mao Shengbo, partner at startup incubator MiraclePlus. “By fully leveraging China's strengths in industrial chains, application scenarios and market size, we can create an entirely new AI supply chain and ecosystem.”
