Recent visit by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to China signals the strong strategic partnerships between both countries. In fact, China has been playing an increasingly significant role as Malaysia’s largest trading partner for the past decade. Similar robust partnerships are observed across other ASEAN countries.
In recent years, adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has been emphasized in various aspects of the China-ASEAN partnerships as part of greater effort to strive in the era of digitalization.
Indeed, China has achieved tremendous breakthroughs in the area of AI technology and facility developments. The China-ASEAN (Huawei) AI Innovation Center in Guangxi, the Big Data center in Guizhou are examples of China endeavours in the pursue of latest AI technologies. The successful implementation elements of these AI initiatives can serve as source of reference for ASEAN countries in developing their strategic AI blueprints and promoting the cross-regional AI technological transfers, especially in the domain of cloud-based intelligent system.
The ASEAN Media’s View on Digital China Media Tour conducted in late February 2023 visited a number of companies that have significant interest in the AI development such as Huawei, Meituan, WeBank, and Ping An Group, as well as Guangdong Laboratory of AI and Digital Economy (Shenzhen) and Belt and Road Research Institute (Shenzhen) for International Cooperation and Development at Shenzhen University. The tour interviewed numerous key figures at respective organizations with indicative signs of advocating closer China-ASEAN regional cooperation and exchange in parallel with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Prospectively, joint talent cultivation in AI is the key to sustainable long-term regional partnerships between China and ASEAN. Strategic AI techniques such as Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Edge Computing, etc have trickled literally into all economic sectors. Although some efforts such as Huawei partnership with National University of Singapore Business Analytics Centre were initiated to nurture AI talents, more well-coordinated, wider scale talent programs are required to increase the AI awareness among local populations. Public AI talent development and upskill programs, especially for ASEAN youth, will be paramount in cementing future success of AI-driven digital economy.
By Gan Hong Seng, Associate Professor at School of AI and Advanced Computing, Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily Website