China banking on AI for innovation edge

China is stepping up the push to develop artificial intelligence in manufacturing to boost its productivity and inject new impetus into the country's economic growth, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Thursday.

"We are experiencing a historical period of convergence of the new round of industrial reforms and the technological revolution. With the innovation of emerging technologies including AI, the manufacturing industry is evolving and innovating in a digital, networked and intelligent direction," Wang Ruihua, deputy director-general at the equipment industry department of the ministry, told a forum at the ongoing second World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin.

"We will take the opportunity to efficiently leverage information technology in industries and develop smart manufacturing to foster new drivers of growth."