Shanghai takes the lead in promoting AI development for shared progress of mankind

Just as a ripple may reflect the dynamic flow of a river, an artificial intelligence innovation center in downtown Shanghai stands to epitomize the city's and, for that matter, the country's effort to promote technological development for shared progress.

"Thanks to our relentless technological innovation, we've reduced the cost of our AI compute power by 10,000 times!" Dai Guohao, co-founder and chief scientist of Infinigence AI, a fast-growing tech startup, said in a media interview released on Tuesday.

He was referring to "a compute power supermarket" jointly launched in February by the Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center, Infinigence AI and INESA. A much lower cost of compute power would enable AI, a new-quality productive force, to access and benefit various users, Dai explained.

You would better understand the meaning of Dai's remarks if you know how important compute power is to AI development and application, and how expensive such power can be.

On April 28, McKinsey & Company published an article on its website, titled "The cost of compute: A $7-trillion race to scale data centers," which describes compute power as one of this decade's most critical resources amid an AI boom.

The article estimates that nearly US$7 trillion in capital outlays will be needed by 2030 to keep pace with the demand of compute power – a staggering number by any measure.

In this context, whoever can meaningfully cut the cost of compute power will gain a competitive edge in AI development while at the same time making AI more affordable and available to the largest possible groups of users.

McKinsey & Company is not the first to have noticed the cost of compute power and what it means to investors. On January 30, Goldman Sachs published an article on its website, titled "China's AI development could speed up AI adoption."

"What's clear to us is that lowering the cost of AI models will drive much higher adoption, as it would make the models much cheaper to use in future," Ronald Keung, head of Goldman Research's Asia Internet team, was quoted as saying.

"Both our research teams in China and the US expect this year to be the year of AI agents and applications. The good news is that some of these Chinese models have pushed the industry to focus not just on raising the performance, but also on lowering the cost. That should drive higher and higher adoption of artificial intelligence," he added.

Keung was talking about the launch of several Chinese generative AI models that sent shock waves through the global tech sector early this year. His acknowledgment of the competitiveness of cost-effective Chinese AI products couldn't have been more acute and accurate.

In Infinigence AI's case, its inclusive development of AI – one that makes AI affordable and available to as many users as possible – is all the more important as it tackles one of the most fundamental infrastructures of AI – its compute power. And in a significant way, it owes much of its fast growth as a quasi unicorn to the Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center, the first of its kind in China, which was launched in September 2023. With a planned area of 100,000 square meters, it's expected to become the world's largest AI incubator.

Infinigence AI was founded in May 2023. When it joined the Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center in September the same year, it had only seven staff members. With the help of the center, Infinigence AI quickly registered in Shanghai. Other things also went well with the firm, such as those related to patent application.

So far, Infinigence AI has raised about 1 billion yuan (US$137 million) in several financing rounds and its staff now number 200, said a report published by The Paper, a leading news portal based in Shanghai, on Tuesday.

The Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center is not just any other incubator. It sort of creates a unique lifestyle in which different firms and entrepreneurs share knowledge and find ways to cooperate with each other. There goes a popular saying about the center: You go upstairs and you can find your upstream partners; you go downstairs and you may find your downstream partners.

A head start

President Xi Jinping visited the center on Tuesday. According to Xinhua news agency, the trip came four days after China's leadership convened a dedicated AI study session, during which Xi called for gaining a head start in this strategic sector.

"AI technology is evolving rapidly and entering a phase of explosive growth," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, during his visit to the center, now home to over 100 enterprises.

Xinhua reported that Xi also walked into an AI product experience store, where he inquired about the functions and market trends of the products, and tried on a pair of smart glasses for a firsthand experience.

The Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center exemplifies the city's overall effort to advance AI. According to the Xinhua report, Shanghai announced a plan last December aimed at developing a world-class AI industry ecosystem by 2025, including measures to step up global cooperation. In 2024, Shanghai's AI industry scale exceeded 400 billion yuan.

Successful telesurgeries

One recent story may serve to best illustrate how affordable AI services can make our lives better. It's about senior doctors at a Shanghai hospital performing surgeries on faraway patients with the help of advanced medical robots.

In a landmark move on April 22, doctors at Ruijin Hospital successfully performed telesurgeries, or remote surgeries, on several patients lying in hospitals far away from Shanghai.

For instance, one 57-year-old patient suffering from colorectal cancer was hospitalized in an area of southwestern China's Yunnan Province, which is 3,300 meters above sea level and nearly 3,000 kilometers from Shanghai. With the help of the Toumai robotic laparoscopic surgical system developed by Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co Ltd, a senior doctor from Ruijin Hospital performed a precision surgery on the patient. This is an example of how technology can transcend space barriers to bring the best possible medical resources to those in dire need.

Now nearly half of Ruijin Hospital's medical equipment is homemade, attesting to a steady rise in the quality of domestic products, especially that of AI-assisted medial robots.

Common good

In many ways, Shanghai is not only a highland of high-tech development, but also an epitome of China's effort to advance technology for common good. And that brings us to a high-profile center launched in Shanghai last year.

During the opening ceremony of the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, UNIDO Director General Gerd Müller inaugurated the new Global Alliance on AI for Industry and Manufacturing Centre of Excellence (AIM Global CoE) together with Jin Zhuanglong, then minister of industry and information technology of China.

What's the value of such a center? The answer may lie in Müller's remarks at the opening ceremony: "China is a superpower in industrialization, digitalization and a leader in artificial intelligence. With our new joint AIM Global Centre of Excellence in Shanghai, we will be able to increase our support to promote best practices and technology transfer to the Global South, so that those countries can benefit from the great potential of AI for development, and contribute to bridging the global digital divide."

Again, it's a story both related to and beyond Shanghai. It's about the city's and the country's dedication to a shared progress of humankind in an era of AI advancement.