Shanghai's Pudong New Area, the first AI innovation application pilot area in China, is focused on driving its digital transformation and accelerating the application of AI in people's daily lives, urban governance and new economy.

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), an annual event initiated in 2018, has provided Pudong with an exchange, exhibition and resource matchmaking platform.

According to Lv Xuecheng, deputy director of the Pudong New Area, the WAIC has been held in Pudong for two consecutive years since 2019. The new area has pioneered the construction of the country's first AI innovation application pilot area, and attracted a group of international and domestic technology luminaries, including IBM, Microsoft, PaddlePaddle, Merck, and Sequoia Capital, to launch an innovative center, lab and incubator. The number of AI companies in Pudong has risen over the years from 350 to over 600.

The 2021 edition of the WAIC, which is scheduled to run from July 8 to 10 in Pudong, will have a plenary session for industry development themed “Connect Cities with AI” that is aimed at helping companies develop AI-related businesses in the new area.

The session will include a forum and roundtable meeting focused on the topic of how AI connects various industries during the digital transformation. An AI innovation application leading area will also be inaugurated at the session to boost the application of AI technologies and products and generate transferable and duplicable cases, experiences and industrial standards. An AI industry map of Pudong will be also revealed.

Pudong will use the opportunity of this year's WAIC to propel the quality development of new-generation AI industry and power the city's digital transformation. On one hand, it will further optimize the mechanism for China's AI industry with a focus on fields such as manufacturing, medical care and self-driving. At the same time, it will extend AI's application in finance, retail, entertainment and education to promote the digital application in economic development, people's daily lives and urban governance.

On the other hand, Pudong will build industrial parks to speed up the digital transformation of the economy through AI. These parks include an AI island in Zhangjiang Science City which would help expand AI application scenarios, as well as a robot valley in Zhanjiang that would act as a platform for building robot industrial clusters in Zhangjiang and Jinqiao, and exploring technological breakthroughs in the robot sector.

Pudong will also step up efforts to bolster the growth of the online new economy and develop a number of industrial software products with independent intellectual property rights and core competitive advantage.

Pudong will aim to leverage its advantages in technologies and industries to support the digital transformation and construction of a leading area for socialist modernization.