Visitors try their hand at a virtual reality experience in the Grand Canal Museum of Beijing.

As a key component of the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum, a salon specializing in artificial intelligence took place in the city's Haidian district earlier in September.

Themed "Cultural Intelligence: AI Reshaping Digital Content Production", the event featured in-depth discussions on topics within the sector, such as innovative models, transformation pathways, challenges and opportunities.

Experts in the AI field, alongside representatives from technology enterprises like the video-sharing platform Kuaishou Technology and leading content creators, gathered to share their insights.

Guo Yanmin, a professor at the Communication University of China, for example, explored the efficiency gains and job restructuring that AI is driving in the audiovisual industry. He emphasized the importance of maintaining authenticity in news communication, originality in artistic creation, and avoiding homogenization in commercial entertainment.

Additionally, Qin Jingyan, a professor at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, examined the role of AI technology in fostering high-level aesthetics and cultural expression, aligning with national strategies such as the dual-carbon reduction goals, sustainable development and building a beacon of cultural prowess.

Cai Xiongshan, vice-president of Kuaishou, highlighted that AI-generated content is driving a new wave of technological transformation in the film and television industry, injecting vitality into its development.

Notably, the China-BRICS Artificial Intelligence Development and Cooperation Center established its first global achievement transformation center at Kuaishou's Brazilian branch in May, indicating broader applications of AI technology in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, Cai said.

In recent years, the global AI technology revolution has continued to advance, with Haidian at the forefront of AI development. The district currently hosts 105 registered large models, accounting for two-thirds of Beijing's total and one-fifth of China's total.

Among these is Keling AI, a video-generating model developed by Kuaishou. Since its launch in June 2024, it has completed over 30 iterations, served more than 45 million global users, and generated over 200 million videos and 400 million images.

It has been integrated into fields such as film and television production, advertising creativity, e-commerce marketing, and cultural tourism, with the potential to empower more industries in the future.

Moreover, Haidian has nurtured leading general-purpose large models like Doubao, Ernie Bot, and ChatGLM, and has incubated significant world-class achievements.

Beijing has been promoting the application of new technologies, products and scenarios to achieve digital empowerment in the cultural field these past few years.

In January, several sci-tech and cultural departments in the city issued a three-year action plan for innovation and development of technology empowering culture, aiming to advance the construction of a national cultural center and an international sci-tech innovation hub.

According to the plan, Beijing will focus on meeting the technological needs of the cultural sector by strengthening research on AI, internet 3.0, and high-end processing chips, enhancing the capabilities of cultural digital content generation.

Technologies like AI and virtual reality will be employed to upgrade cultural infrastructure and create benchmark projects in cultural tourism, film, and cultural heritage sectors.

Furthermore, the city will promote the implementation of pilot policies, establish key laboratories for the integration of culture and technology, build a sci-tech and cultural industry cluster, and explore the application of AI in the governance of cultural digital content.

In August, Beijing released this year's list of technology-empowered cultural projects, including AI large model-based museum guidance and interactive theater experience systems, AI digital museums of industrial heritage, and AI-assisted music program score analysis and intelligent shooting systems.

Guided by the action plan and supported by the project list, Beijing will continue to integrate science and technology with the cultural industry, and build an innovation system poised for the future.