Artificial intelligence is gaining traction in business operations, fueling upgrades across enterprises’ whole value chains, industry experts and observers said.
Businesses are integrating AI into their operational segments, covering production, supply-chain management, operational governance and after-sales services, said Cui Kai, associate research director for IDC China.
Speaking at the IDC Directions forum in Shenzhen on Wednesday, he said such deployment brings end-to-end transformation throughout their value chains.
Wu Lianfeng, IDC China’s vice-president and chief research analyst, said he believes Chinese enterprises are moving beyond mere product sales to offering core technological capabilities, open platforms and industrial ecosystems.
Companies that take the lead in building AI platforms and exploring application scenarios will be best positioned to seize growth opportunities, he said.
According to IDC, China’s spending on digital technologies is expected to maintain double-digit growth in the coming years.
Enterprises’ expenditures on AI worldwide is projected to hit $940 billion this year and increase to $2.1 trillion by 2029, with China standing out as one of the world’s fastest-growing markets, the international research firm said.
At the AI Empowering Asia-Pacific SME Industrial Development Forum, a separate event held in Shenzhen on the same day, Cao Zhongxiong, assistant president of Shenzhen-based think tank China Development Institute, said that policymaking in the AI era requires a shift in thinking.
Instead of just offering targeted support, governments should help build complete industrial ecosystems so that small and medium-sized enterprises can take part in the AI revolution and reap its benefits, he said.
Lang Liping, secretary-general of Shenzhen Association for Artificial Intelligence, said that the size of China’s core AI industry amounted to 1.2 trillion yuan ($176.6 billion) last year, with the number of AI enterprises surpassing 6,200.
Davis Xu contributed to this story.
