亚信科技

The invention and use of tools marked a significant milestone in human evolution. Now, we are stepping onto the great watershed of “Artificial Intelligence”! IDigital, AsiaInfo's subsidiary, introduced its “2023 China AI Industry Research Report” based on a range of aspects, including an overview of the industry, policy and capital dynamics, market trends, industrial opportunities, benchmark vendors, and industry regulation, providing credible information and insights to the market and industry practitioners.

01 Overview of the AI Industry

2023 must be a significant year for the development of artificial intelligence that will surely be recorded in history! In this year, big models with high availability and anthropomorphic capabilities have crossed the technological threshold, giving rise to multiple technological, market, and regulatory milestones. AI applications have driven an explosive impact around the world. IResearch has conducted a comprehensive review of AI achievements in 2023 through five dimensions: “technology, application, computing power, policy regulation, and international situation.”

According to iResearch's calculation, China's AI industry scale will exceed 800 billion yuan by 2028, with a compound growth rate of 30.6% over the next five years.

02 AI Policies and Capital Dynamics

2024, with the top-level design of AI entering a deeper stage, the generative AI has attracted people's attention. A three-pronged approach of “regulating the guidance, consolidating the foundation, and supporting the industry” will promote the comprehensive development of the AI industry.

The AI industry is also embarking on a new round of financing, with AIGC-related financing accounting for 28% of all such events, making it the most prominent keyword for AI financing this year. In the primary market, capital is favoring the combination of “celebrity entrepreneurs + big model teams.” In the secondary market, Hong Kong's stock market has opened up a wider window for AI companies, in which long-term profitability is the key to approval.

03 AI Technology and Industry Focus

Big models have emerged as a surprise force, triggering and developing the industrialized production of AI, and the decoder-only approach has led the transformation of the generative AI industry. Natural language processing capabilities have continued to make breakthroughs and innovations. The optimization of the computer vision track has further complemented generative capabilities, and AI has begun to develop a three-dimensional understanding and creative capacity of the world, bringing more imagination space to the industry.

Big models excel in generalized reasoning capabilities, while NLP mini models excel in high maturity and cost performance. Both are currently in the stage of integration and empowerment. In the future, the “unified” multi-modal models will be the development priority.

In terms of applications, AI and automation technologies are being systematically integrated into IT network processes, business functions, and other departments of Chinese enterprises. In addition, generative AI products are leading the way in scenarios such as marketing and sales, and product development, helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency.

China's focus on and application of AI is at the forefront of the world, with AI accelerating its penetration into various industries. China's intelligent computing power industry is experiencing rapid growth, and the application of upper-level models has also driven the booming of the AI basic data service market. However, the quality of the data and the performance of the computing power restrict the development of the models and the application.

IDC predicted that China is expected to become the world's largest data sphere by 2025. China's data productivity will gradually increase, and data standards and ecosystem construction will be further improved Computing power, as a new type of productivity integrating information computing power, network carrying capacity, and data storage capacity, is the key to the development of artificial intelligence. According to iResearch's estimations, the market size of China's intelligent computing power has reached 509.7 billion yuan in 2023. China's AI Data Center should not only focus on hardware performance, network bandwidth, and computing power scale, but also on integrating software and hardware capabilities, aligning with industrial requirements and regional characteristics.

At present, China is paying more attention to the development and application of general and vertical big models. In 2023, industry-specific big models entered a period of explosive growth, with healthcare, finance, scientific research, and education as the main areas for their deployment. China's generative AI applications are making steady progress in commercialization, with more than 40 big models having obtained the necessary “certificates” for operation. 

04 Reviews on AI Society and Regulation

As AI technology rapidly advances, society is increasingly concerned about issues such as user privacy, security ethics, etc. Enterprise applications are also constrained by issues such as data security and reliability. Only by taking multiple measures from the aspects of technology, regulations, standards, etc., can we continuously promote AI industrial development, avoid more derivative problems, and gain widespread understanding from society.