Chinese developers take lead on using AI for good

Chinese developers are actively using artificial intelligence technologies to empower a diverse range of sectors, unleashing its vast potential in art, traditional culture, ecological conservation, education, and accessibility.

Several Chinese developer teams shared their innovations with AI at this year's Google I/O Connect China, which concluded on Thursday in Shanghai.

Zhao Yijie, a young artist graduating from Central Academy of Fine Arts, aims to bring ancient cultures back into people's lives with art and technology. Using Google's Gemma 4 open model, he made it possible to interact with the artifacts, pottery figurines, and paper cuts displayed in museums, rather than simply "see" them. Visitors can create their own paper cuts by drawing on a tablet and see ancient pottery figurines follow their dance move while wearing outfits with the same color scheme.

"We believe that the true preservation of traditional culture is not merely showcasing them in glass cases, but to invite audiences to step inside and become part of it, making traditional culture something they can experience, interact with, and connect with," Zhao said.

Han Peng, a postdoctoral researcher from the Institute of Ecology at Peking University, is making efforts in biodiversity protection with the company's AI model Perch.

Home to more than 1,400 bird species, China is rich in avian biodiversity, which also results in a highly varied and complex array of bird songs that are extremely hard to monitor with traditional manual surveys. However, acoustic monitoring with AI offers a new solution to this challenge. Han noted that compared to manual surveys, acoustic surveys may require less than 3 percent of the time and a much lower cost to achieve the same survey objectives.

"AI's ability to understand the meaning behind bird songs goes beyond simply identifying its species," Han, who hopes to use AI to build a database of Chinese bird songs in the future, said. "Its greater value lies in helping us hear the signals emitted by ecosystems and ultimately turning these sounds into scientific evidence for understanding changes in nature and protecting biodiversity."

Luo Wencong, a visually impaired software engineer at Google, focused on developing and improving the features of screen reader software for his community.

NVDA is an open-source screen-reading software launched 20 years ago by two visually impaired Australians. Luo, along with other volunteers, have established the software's local community in China and have been contributing new features to the project.

One challenge that has long troubled its users is that when the reader encounters an image, it is unable to recognize the content and information within the image. To tackle this problem, Luo's team developed VisAware, a visual assistance plug-in which can help read book illustrations, complicated formulas, browse social media content, and perform complex interactions.

"Since the plug-in's release, we've received a lot of genuine feedback and positive reviews from users with visual impairments, which makes me particularly happy," Luo said. "As a developer, it has always motivated me to contribute when I'm able to use technology to tangibly help users solve specific challenges in their daily lives and work."

Stanley Chen, president of Greater China and Korea at Google, noted that a wave of innovation from China is sweeping the globe. "No matter how far technology advances, its human touch always comes from people," Chen said. "We see that, in the hands of Chinese developers, technology for good has evolved from a grand vision into a series of vivid realities."