BEIJING — Across China's steel industry, once noisy furnace floors are giving way to intelligent systems where control centers analyze vast streams of production data in real time, artificial intelligence adjusts furnace temperatures dynamically and robots spot defects with greater accuracy.

For industry veterans, this transformation is striking, and experts say it signals how frontier technologies are breathing new life into traditional sectors.

"As a frontier technology in the digital era, AI is bringing new hope to breaking long-standing bottlenecks in the steel industry," said Zhang Longqiang, head of the China Metallurgical Information and Standardization Institute, adding that intelligent algorithms are already driving progress in process optimization, quality control and supply chain management.

Data from the China Iron and Steel Association show that 95.1 percent of Chinese steel enterprises have incorporated digital transformation strategies into their overall development plans, 82.9 percent have established centralized intelligent control centers, and 63.4 percent have applied 3D visualization and simulation systems to build digital factories.

The cutting-edge technology has also been applied to infrastructure construction. According to the local unit of the national railway operator China State Railway Group, State builders have achieved a project milestone in building Shaoxing Rail Transit's intercity railway, with AI playing a key role.

Supported by solutions provided by a team comprising engineers from top institutes such as Fudan University, construction workers from China Railway 24th Bureau Group Corp replaced a 4,086-metric-ton railway bridge section with millimeter-level precision using AI at Keqiao Station along the intercity railway, marking China's first AI-assisted bridge replacement on an operating project. A new section of five steel box girders, weighing 4,389.6 tons, was positioned within 3 mm of its target during a tight overnight window, minimizing disruption to the neighboring rail corridor.

"The team employed digital twin simulations and 36 synchronized jacks controlled by AI algorithms. The breakthrough could also be applied to certain projects for efficient upgrades of other existing rail networks," said Fan Rugang, the project manager.

From factory floors to farmlands and service hubs, China's "AI Plus "drive is expanding across sectors.

Drones streamline logistics in Shenzhen, AI-powered robots help manage greenhouses in Shandong, and intelligent voice systems in Hefei serve users around the world. Together, these snapshots of China's AI landscape underscore the country's strengths in its rich data resources, complete industrial system and broad application scenarios.

The State Council recently unveiled a set of guidelines on advancing the "AI Plus" initiative, providing a systematic action plan to embed AI into various sectors and support high-quality social and economic development.

Experts say the initiative marks a new stage of the digital revolution.

Zhong Xinlong, a researcher at the China Center for Information Industry Development, used a vivid analogy: If the last decade was about building an extensive information superhighway, the next decade will be about running countless fleets of intelligent agents with decision-making and collaborative capabilities on that highway.

The guidelines propose support for the construction of open-source AI communities, and for the pooling and opening of models, tools and datasets to be promoted, which will provide the key needs of technological innovation and will lower research and development barriers.

Xinhua - China Daily