Zhejiang is at the forefront of AI development in China and has a promising growth outlook, experts and officials said at a conference held at Zhejiang Lab in Hangzhou on Feb 7.

“There were over 1,600 AI companies in Zhejiang in 2022, a significant increase from 1,156 in the previous year,” said Li Yongwei, the chief engineer of the Department of Economy and Information Technology.

AI technology has been integrated into various fields such as e-commerce, unmanned offices, unmanned retail stores and intelligent home appliances, creating a complete industry chain connecting research and development of the core technology, intelligent terminal manufacturing and intelligent applications, he added.

The implementation of AI in Zhejiang is also expected to address the current shortage of talent. According to the Department of Human Resources and Social Security, there are currently 900,000 job openings in the province, particularly in the manufacturing and service industries, where an additional 200,000 talents are needed. These industries will benefit greatly if AI can help bridge this employment gap, said officials.

On Feb 8, Hangzhou-based Alibaba DAMO Academy, one of the R&D arms of the internet giant Alibaba, confirmed that they are internally testing a ChatGPT-style AI chatbot. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. As a pre-trained AI model, it is designed to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions.

The registered capital of Alibaba DAMO Academy (Hangzhou) has risen from its initial 10 million yuan to 300 million yuan, according to data from Qichacha, a corporate information provider. The academy is expected to continue investing in underlying technologies such as AI.