Shanghai academic conference bridges AI and humanities

More than 600 researchers, students and industry professionals gathered in Shanghai for the second CCF (China Computer Federation) AI for Humanities Conference from Aug 28 to 30, underscoring China's growing push to integrate artificial intelligence with history, archaeology, literature and the arts.

The conference, hosted by the China Computer Federation and co‑organized by Fudan University, featured 17 specialized thematic forums, 40 poster presentations and a dedicated art and design exhibition. Topics covered a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary frontiers, ranging from ancient manuscript analysis and digital archaeology, to spatial computational humanities, smart museum curation, and AI ethics.

Research teams unveiled digital infrastructure projects, including restoration and translation tools for ancient Tibetan, Dongba and Manchu manuscripts, developed by teams from Xizang University, Minzu University of China and Beijing Jiaotong University to help preserve China's ethnic scripts. Fudan University also presented its early Chinese civilization multimodal large model.

In the keynote address, Xizang University academician Nima Zhaxi presented "Sunshine Qingyan," a Tibetan‑language general‑purpose large model with hundreds of billions of parameters. He stressed that multilingual AI systems have become strategic infrastructure in global competition, essential for protecting cultural security. The Tibetan-language model was released in Lhasa in mid-August, following two months of internal testing and two months of public beta.

"Multilingual large models are a battleground for great-power strategic competition and a new high ground in technological rivalry, essential for protecting cultural security," said Nima Zhaxi. "Homegrown multilingual AI technology is the path for us to proactively meet challenges in the AI wave and resolve critical bottlenecks."

Fudan University Party Secretary Qiu Xin said AI technology is "accelerating and evolving, driving profound change in the humanities" in his opening address, and called for expanded collaboration across disciplines to develop new frontiers in humanistic AI.

"We are delighted to see an open, diverse, and vibrant interdisciplinary community taking shape, as the field of AI for humanities embraces unprecedented historical opportunities," CCF Computer Application Professional Committee Vice Chair Lu Zeguang also added.

The conference also featured four pre-conference courses on Aug 28, covering topics such as human-machine collaborative research paradigms and AI-generated content for digital museum exhibitions.

The first CCF Conference on AI for Humanities was held in Beijing in December 2025.

Ma Tan in Shanghai contributed to the story.