Shandong unveils 'Qilu Seven Stars' industrial AI models

Shandong province is using vertical large models to drive development across many industries. On Wednesday, it unveiled seven such models in Jinan, collectively called the Qilu Seven Stars, a name that signals the province's aim to set a clear direction for industrial AI.

The unveiling took place at a three-day AI industry conference, which featured a main forum, more than 20 thematic sub-forums and a series of special activities, creating a platform for matching supply and demand, connecting industries and fostering collaborative innovation in AI.

Instead of competing in general-purpose foundation models, the seven are designed as specialist champions rooted in Shandong's industrial strengths.

For instance, at the main transport system of the Lilou coal mine, miners used to walk nearly 10 kilometers a day to inspect equipment. Now, AI cameras can remotely spot anomalies such as large coal lumps and anchor bolts with 98 percent accuracy.

These changes are driven by a mining large model, jointly launched in Jinan by Shandong Energy Group, Yunding Technology and Huawei.

Building a vertical large model that truly fits complex underground conditions is not easy. The core industry data needed to train such models comes largely from real mining sites.

Shandong Energy Group owns nearly 80 coal mines, covering almost all geological conditions found in coal mines across China. Millions of underground images and hundreds of billions of pieces of production data have been turned into high-quality industry datasets.

Shandong's advantage goes beyond mining. With all 41 major industrial categories, it is one of China's most industrially complete provinces. Its comprehensive industrial system has created a huge number of real production scenarios and accumulated large amounts of industrial process data. This gives Shandong unique advantages for training, testing and improving vertical large models, and provides an irreplaceable testing ground for AI to move from research to large-scale application.

Li Husheng from the China Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team said Shandong's core advantage is its complete industrial categories and many application scenarios, which provide fertile ground for vertical large models to grow.

The seven models cover chemical safety, light manufacturing, underground mining, port scheduling, recycling, metallurgy and precision manufacturing. They include a "smart eye" for chemical production safety, a "super brain" for flexible light manufacturing, and a "digital guardian" for frontline underground operations. Others can schedule berth plans for 10,000-ton vessels with minute-level precision, support intelligent sorting for recycling, offer an optimal solution for energy saving and carbon reduction in metallurgical blast furnaces, and help achieve extreme precision in core equipment for precision manufacturing.