Local government officials also train AI in China’s AI craze

Amid the AI craze led by China’s low-cost, high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) DeepSeek, local governments in China have also started AI education for public officials.

According to China’s state-run English-language media Global Times on the 20th, China’s Zhejiang Province began four months of AI education for local government officials, including 10 lectures conducted by experts. Special education on AI basic and application began at the Zhejiang Tang School of the Chinese Communist Party in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on the 18th.

The first lecture was given by the founder of Alibaba Cloud and the head of Wang Jianzhang Research Institute, a Chinese Academy of Processors, on AI development, industrial applications, and global AI ecosystems.

The training was conducted by combining online and offline lecture formats so that its officials could attend through the field or the Internet, and 296,000 online participants were reported to have gathered for the first lecture.

The training, which will run until June, will involve industry experts, scholars, and technology-related entrepreneurs, and AI learning will be conducted from various angles, including general knowledge, industry, policy application, and case studies. It also provides hands-on training on large AI models such as DeepSeek.

Since the announcement of DeepSeek, China has been preparing for the AI era in various fields.

Tsinghua University, a prestigious Chinese university, has decided to establish a new undergraduate school that integrates AI with various academic fields to foster AI-related professionals, and to this end, the number of undergraduate admissions has been increased by about 150 this year.

Shanghai Fudan University, well-known for its humanities, has also decided to reduce the ratio of humanities admissions from the current 30 to 40 percent to 20 percent, while the college of engineering will be divided into six “innovation academies.” New humanities will also be established in the liberal arts field.

It is also applying AI to various fields including each company. While various financial institutions, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, have applied Deepseek to use it for customer service and credit management, some local hospitals have also introduced AI to their medical systems.

Simultaneous interpretation services based on deep-seated technology were also used at some local government events ahead of China’s largest annual political event, the National People’s Congress and the National People’s Political Consultative Conference.

JENNIFER KIM

US ASIA JOURNAL