Cybersecurity forum seeks robust AI governance

From mobile payments and connected home devices to online services, digital technology has become deeply woven into people's daily lives. But behind the convenience are risks ranging from telecom fraud and personal information leaks to algorithms that can manipulate or mislead users.

The opening ceremony of this year's China Cybersecurity Week was held in Jinan, Shandong province, against this backdrop on Monday.

This year's theme, "Cybersecurity for the People, Cybersecurity by the People — Safeguarding the Intelligent Era", highlights the growing importance of cybersecurity as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into people's lives and the economy.

Large AI models are advancing rapidly and reshaping production, daily life and public governance. At the same time, security risks, including data leaks and other vulnerabilities, are increasingly turning from technical concerns into real-world threats, participants at the event's main forum said.

They called for the development of a stronger system to govern AI and ensure that it is safe, reliable and controllable.

"Critical information infrastructure in fields such as finance, energy, power, communications and transportation has become a key target of cyberattacks," said Ji Mingbin, general manager of China Southern Power Grid Co.

As new energy has become the largest source of power and AI and big data have been increasingly integrated into the power grid's core operations, the number of cyberattacks has continued to rise over the past three years, Ji said.

To counter the growing threats, the company has developed intelligent cybersecurity products that can automatically identify weaknesses in its systems, improving the efficiency of vulnerability detection by more than 10 times, Ji said.

The products have a vulnerability detection rate of more than 92 percent and an alarm accuracy rate of 96.8 percent, he said.

Zhu Wenlei, CEO of Chaitin Technology, said AI is also helping to accelerate the development of cybersecurity.

"Our company has long been engaged in front-line research on AI security, especially in detecting and defending against cyberattacks that exploit software vulnerabilities," he said.

"In the face of AI-driven upgrades in attack capabilities, we should accelerate the building of a security capability foundation for homegrown large models," Zhu said.

He said large AI models could play a greater role in cybersecurity, but their effectiveness depends on both stronger models and access to large amounts of high-quality security data.

"Model producers, security companies, research institutions and industry users should be encouraged to work together on training and continuously improving these models," he said.

The host province, Shandong is home to two national-level internet backbone direct connection points in Jinan, the provincial capital, and Qingdao. The province has 317 large AI model products, while AI is increasingly being used in traditional industries, including mining, transportation and manufacturing.

As digital applications become more widespread and security needs grow more urgent, hosting China Cybersecurity Week in Shandong is not only an opportunity to address emerging security challenges in the intelligent era, but also a chance to explore cybersecurity practices that can be applied and expanded across the country.