The New Kinetic Energy of Economic Development
Editor’s Note
At present, China’s economy has entered a stage of high-quality development, and is in a critical period of transforming the mode of economic development, optimizing the economic structure, and transforming the driving force for growth. Our country has the advantages of rapid innovation capacity enhancement, strong market demand support, and large space for industrial upgrading, which has created a rare historic opportunity for the formation of new productive forces and the cultivation of new economic momentum. Therefore, the Shanghai Securities News, China Macroeconomic Research Institute, and China Economic Information Network formed a joint research group to jointly launch a series of reports on "New Kinetic Energy for Economic Development", focusing on the development prospects of new kinetic energy industries from the aspects of "artificial intelligence +", green trade, low-altitude economy, new consumption, and green transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. Discuss how to give full play to the advantages of policies, markets, and technologies to accelerate the development of new productive forces, accelerate the cultivation of new economic kinetic energy, and inject new vitality and impetus into economic development
□ artificial intelligence is a strategic technology that leads the future, and it is also the core driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. The 2024 government work report proposes to "formulate policies to support the high-quality development of the digital economy" and "carry out the’artificial intelligence + ‘action". This means that "artificial intelligence +" has been officially upgraded to a national-level special project action
The "artificial intelligence +" action is a major measure to conform to the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, actively seize the dominance of international scientific and technological competition, and is a major deployment to accelerate the development of new productive forces. "Artificial intelligence +" will accelerate artificial intelligence empower thousands of industries, benefit thousands of households, and inject surging momentum into the accelerated cultivation and development of new productive forces
To ensure the effectiveness of the "artificial intelligence +" operation, we should improve the policy support and guarantee system as soon as possible, build computing power infrastructure in advance, accelerate the research and development of artificial intelligence large-scale model technology, continue to improve the depth and breadth of artificial intelligence applications, and ensure that artificial intelligence is safe and available. On the basis of deepening, it truly cultivates into a powerful engine of new productivity
First, artificial intelligence has become a powerful engine for a new round of technological revolution and industrial change to activate new quality productivity
The 2024 government work report proposes to "formulate policies to support the high-quality development of the digital economy" and "carry out the’artificial intelligence + ‘action." The implementation of the "artificial intelligence +" action is a major measure to conform to the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, and actively seize the dominance of international scientific and technological competition. Artificial intelligence has become a powerful engine to accelerate the development of new quality productivity.
(1) Major strategic measures to seize the commanding heights of global technological innovation and new opportunities for industrial competition
Artificial intelligence is a strategic technology that leads the future, and it is also the core driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. Since 2023, from the stunning appearance of ChatGPT to Sora maxing out the world, from single intelligence to general intelligence, from single mode to multi-mode, the artificial intelligence model has rapidly iterated and become a "arena" for global tech giants. It is predicted that generative artificial intelligence is expected to contribute nearly 90 trillion yuan in economic value to the world in 2035. At the same time, some Western countries attempt to monopolize the development advantages of artificial intelligence, abuse the concept of national security, frequently introduce bills and executive orders on artificial intelligence, and try to thwart China’s development of artificial intelligence by piecing together international multilateral mechanisms. At present, the number of artificial intelligence enterprises in China, the amount of investment, and the strength of scientific research are still in the "catch-up" stage. Implementing the "artificial intelligence +" operation is conducive to firmly grasping the "bull’s nose" of artificial intelligence, relying on disruptive technologies and cutting-edge technologies to stimulate more new productivity, and taking the initiative and leading power in reshaping the new pattern of global competition.
(2) Forward-looking, systematic and comprehensive policy design facing the times
The "artificial intelligence +" campaign is based on the unique advantages of our country’s massive multi-data, super-large-scale market and rich application scenarios. It aims to vigorously cultivate new artificial intelligence products and services, which is conducive to comprehensively demonstrating the role of increment and amplifier of scientific and technological innovation. It empowers traditional industries to upgrade, emerging industries to grow, and future industries to cultivate. It builds a development pattern of benign interaction between scientific and technological innovation and industrial application innovation, and leads the formation and development of new productivity. The latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that our country has built more than 2,500 digital workshops and intelligent factories. After intelligent transformation, the R & D cycle has been shortened by about 20.7%, the production efficiency has been increased by about 34.8%, the defective product rate has been reduced by about 27.4%, and the carbon emission has been Launching the "artificial intelligence +" campaign will deeply empower the transformation and upgrading of thousands of industries, promote quality change, efficiency change, power change, and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity.
(3) Major action plans based on our country’s technological innovation advantages and integrated application potential
At present, our country artificial intelligence has a solid foundation for development in key core technologies, industrial ecosystems, and integrated application scenarios.
In terms of key technologies, our country’s enterprises have made important breakthroughs in key core technologies such as application algorithms, smart chips, and open-source frameworks. Image recognition, automatic speech recognition and other application technologies have entered the international advanced ranks. Iconic products such as smart sensors and intelligent networked vehicles are effectively applied.
In terms of industrial ecology, our country artificial intelligence industry ecology has been initially formed, and innovative achievements such as intelligent chips, development frameworks, and general models continue to emerge. According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the scale of China’s artificial intelligence core industry will reach 508 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 18% year-on-year; preliminary statistics show that the scale of artificial intelligence core industry will reach 578.40 billion yuan in 2023, with a growth rate of 13.9%.
From the perspective of application scenarios, the application of artificial intelligence in many fields such as smart finance, smart medical care, smart manufacturing, and smart energy has achieved phased results. The implementation of the "artificial intelligence +" action is conducive to taking the application scenario as the guide, gradually driving the simultaneous advancement of technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and actively seizing the competitive advantage of international cutting-edge technology.
The "artificial intelligence +" operation brings significant opportunities and broad prospects
The rise of "artificial intelligence +" to a national-level special project action means that our country will strengthen top-level design and policy support. In 2024, artificial intelligence is expected to usher in the first year of explosive growth in application scenarios. "artificial intelligence +" will accelerate artificial intelligence empower thousands of industries and benefit thousands of households.
(1) The large model of multi-modal artificial intelligence has entered a new stage of comprehensive application
With the launch of the "artificial intelligence +" initiative, the artificial intelligence large-scale model will move from the market exploration and cultivation period to a new stage of comprehensive application. Generative artificial intelligence is gradually moving from mono-modality to multi-modality with the help of key technologies such as natural language processing, brain-like algorithms, speech technology, video generation, human-machine interaction, computer recognition and pattern recognition, security and privacy. Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) will become the core of the general artificial intelligence ecosystem. Large model manufacturers will accelerate the implementation of open-source pre-trained models, and promote the formation of "general large model + domain large model + industry large model + enterprise/personal small model" on the supply side. The application of large models in related key areas will be deepened, and the value of the industry will continue to be released. The agency predicts that more than 500 million new intelligent applications will be bred globally in 2024, which is equivalent to the total number of applications in the past 40 years.
(2) artificial intelligence empowers thousands of industries and benefits thousands of households
From "artificial intelligence" to "artificial intelligence +", the difference behind the word reflects the expansion from technological revolution to industrial change, reflecting the development direction of "deep technology innovation" driven by application needs.
Artificial intelligence will deeply empower thousands of industries. Focusing on the construction of a modern industrial system, artificial intelligence will be fully integrated into key links and business scenarios in high-end manufacturing, modern service industries, and modern agriculture, helping to improve the quality, efficiency, and cost of the national economy. For example, in the field of intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence will play a greater role in business links and scenarios such as industrial quality inspection, supply chain management, equipment fault diagnosis, industrial remote control, predictive maintenance, resource planning and scheduling, and product design. Typical scenarios such as industrial brains, industrial robots, and industrial Internet will further help "Made in China" move towards "Intelligent Manufacturing in China". According to the CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the contribution of generative AI to China’s economy in 2035 is expected to exceed 30 trillion yuan.
Artificial intelligence will fully benefit thousands of households. Facing the new needs of people for a better life, artificial intelligence will be deeply integrated into all aspects of social governance, public services, urban and rural development, and effectively improve the sense of gain and happiness of the general public. For example, in the field of urban management, artificial intelligence will accelerate the generation of urban brains, urban IoT perception, government data can be invisible, digital procurement and other artificial intelligence application scenarios. Diverse community life scenarios such as future communities, unmanned distribution, community e-commerce, and digital restaurants will emerge, making cities more "smart".
(3) infrastructure building is expected to accelerate the new gap in the demand for computing power
Data, computing power, and algorithms are the "three cornerstones" of artificial intelligence technology. Computing power is the "fuel" for large model training. As artificial intelligence moves from a single intelligence to a general intelligence, the demand for computing power has increased sharply, the gap in computing power has expanded, and the contradiction between supply and demand has become prominent. The real problem of computing power infrastructure building has become an urgent need to be solved. With the development of large models in full swing, the demand for training computing power is expected to expand to 10 to 100 times the original, and the exponential growth curve of computing power demand will be even steeper. For example, under the same training time, the demand for computing power in GPT-4 is 445 times higher than that of GPT-3. Carrying out the "artificial intelligence +" action, our country is expected to speed up the process of computing power infrastructure building, accelerate the innovation of chips, operating systems, application software and computing architecture, servers, chips, CPUs, GPUs, IDC, quantum computing, optical communication and other computing power facilities will accelerate the layout, and promote the upstream and downstream construction and quality upgrade of the computing power industry chain.
Promote the "artificial intelligence +" action to activate new productivity momentum
The development of artificial intelligence still faces a series of problems such as insufficient policy support, shortage of computing power infrastructure, "neck" of key core technologies, and insufficient application depth and breadth. It is urgent to deploy systems and implement precise policies to ensure that artificial intelligence is in-depth on the basis of safety and availability.
(1) Perfect and improve the policy support and guarantee system
The implementation of the "artificial intelligence +" action should take the lead in accelerating the improvement of basic elements such as policies, talents, and funds. The "artificial intelligence +" action special project plan should be introduced as soon as possible, and a general artificial intelligence development plan at the national level should be systematically formulated. Both the government and enterprises need to increase R & D investment in the field of artificial intelligence, and increase the reserve of resources such as artificial intelligence technology innovation and cross-border talents. Aim at areas with large talent gaps such as basic theoretical research, and focus on exploring deep integration of discipline construction and new models of talent training. Accelerate the promotion of large-scale models to empower whole-school education, explore the establishment of a national artificial intelligence college, and strengthen the development of artificial intelligence-related disciplines and high-level talent training.
(2) Moderately advance the construction of computing power infrastructure
Establish and improve the standard and specification system of computing power scheduling, focusing on core links such as computing power node capacity measurement, multi-heterogeneous computing power grid-connected scheduling, and computer network trusted transactions, and comprehensively promote the coordinated development of computational intelligence, perceptual intelligence, cognitive intelligence, and sports intelligence. Coordinate the collaborative computing of general computing power, intelligent computing power, and super computing power. Continuously improve various standards and specifications to achieve industry-recognized computing power measurement standards. Accelerate the construction of a national integrated computing power network with networked scheduling, universal access, and green security. Promote a high proportion of various computing power resources and large-scale integrated scheduling operations across the country, and realize the sharing and optimal utilization of computing power resources in many places. Formulate and promote the intelligent computing infrastructure evaluation system for the era of general artificial intelligence, promote construction and excellence through evaluation, and improve the service level of intelligent computing centers.
(3) Promote the research and development of artificial intelligence large-scale model technology
Aim at the shortcomings of algorithms, hardware, security and other technologies, and encourage and support more independent innovation achievements. Strengthen the research and development of high-performance AI chips, deepen the research and innovation of cutting-edge algorithms such as deep learning and reinforcement learning, accelerate the optimization and adaptive improvement of algorithms, and solve the problem of key technology "stuck neck" from the source and the bottom. Explore the construction of an innovation consortium with enterprises as the main body and in-depth integration of production, education and research. Support state-owned enterprises to strengthen key core technology research in the field of artificial intelligence, and drive all kinds of entities in the industrial chain innovation chain. Encourage private enterprises to explore general, industry, enterprise, individual and other large models that adapt to multiple application scenarios, and activate the innovation enthusiasm of different types of enterprises such as platform enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises.
(4) Improve the depth and breadth of artificial intelligence applications
Develop digital solutions that are more suitable for industry applications, and promote the combination of "digital transformation and intelligent reform" with traditional industries. Build a multi-level application scenario supply and demand docking platform to provide the market with "visible and tangible" application scenarios. Implement the large-scale model empower thousands of industries demonstration application promotion plan nationwide, encourage relevant vertical industry enterprises to actively embrace artificial intelligence technology, launch a number of "artificial intelligence +" fusion application scenarios and demonstration cases, and seize the opportunity to form landmark results in key areas such as biology, new materials, and new energy vehicles. Promote the construction of large-scale model application ecology, and build an open, shared and collaborative industrial ecosystem.
(5) Attaching importance to scientific and technological ethics and data security
Improve the security and privacy protection technology of AI systems, do a good job in adversarial attack defense, data encryption, etc., and consolidate the technical foundation of artificial intelligence governance. Significantly identify the content generated by artificial intelligence to prevent misinformation, prejudice discrimination and even consciousness penetration caused by artificial intelligence. Correctly handle the relationship between people and artificial intelligence, and strengthen the judgment and prevention of latent risks in the development of artificial intelligence. Promote the introduction of the "artificial intelligence law" to improve the legislation in artificial intelligence-related fields. On the premise of safeguarding the safety bottom line, actively promote inclusive and prudential supervision, and give new technologies enough space for innovation and necessary trial and error space.
(Author: Xu Ce, China Academy of Macroeconomics; China Economic Information Network, Zuo Dengji)
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