Tech cooperation with China adapts to local needs, drives industrial upgrades

As one story about AI unfolds, focusing on geopolitical rivalry and existential risks, another one emerges in China and its Southeast Asian neighbors, where collaboration is taking center stage.

In Malaysia's durian orchards, AI-powered solutions are making harvesting safer and more efficient.

The highest-quality Malaysian durians believed to have the best flavor are ripened on the tree and naturally fall. Farmers must wait for the fruit to drop, using nets to cushion its fall or sending workers more than 10 meters up trees to attach ropes and hooks to individual fruits. Both methods aim to protect the valuable durians and people below.

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The wait-and-collect approach relies on manual patrols, an inefficient method that risks losses when fallen fruit is not collected in time.

Chinese AI companies are now seeking to change that. Guo Yingchao, an AI specialist at Maimai Technology, envisions a future with AI-powered durian orchards.

A Musang King durian's optimal tasting period is from three to eight hours after falling, leaving only a narrow window to preserve its freshness, Guo said, adding that durians collected within this window command the highest prices.

"Each fruit on every tree will be digitally encoded," he said. Environmental and growth data will feed an AI model to predict when each durian will fall, allowing sensors and robots to collect the fruit and move it to cold storage within the optimal window, preserving its peak market value.

Beyond harvesting, drones equipped with near-infrared lidar will patrol orchards and feed data on soil moisture and surface water levels into the AI model, Guo said. This will help detect root rot early and prevent its spread across the plantation, he said.

For Guo, applying AI to agriculture in Southeast Asia involves more than transferring Chinese technology. It requires reassessing technical feasibility and building entirely new databases.

"In Malaysia, the application scenarios for our technology were only pushed forward after extensive on-the-ground surveys and feasibility studies," Guo said. "While Malaysia's pillar industries include durian, palm oil and rice cultivation, our assessment of economic viability led us to focus primarily on high-value-added crops like durian and palm," he said.

Developing these nuanced crop growth models requires extensive fieldwork. Guo said he typically visits each crop three to four times, spending at least three months on each trip. "Our goal is to identify the precise correlations between crop timings and observed phenomena," he said.

Tangible benefits

The benefits are tangible. Li Lixian, general manager of Maimai Technology's marketing center, said its rubber crop growth model identifies pests and diseases with 90 to 95 percent accuracy. Robotic tapping machines are projected to cut labor costs by 30 to 40 percent and reduce yield losses from premature tapping by about 20 percent.

In June, the company secured overseas orders for 20,000 agricultural robots for harvesting, inspection and crop protection in plantations across Malaysia, underscoring the commercial success of these integrated solutions.

Malaysia's farms are just one example of booming AI collaboration between China and Southeast Asian countries, with Chinese technologies being adapted to diverse local needs.

In Laos, a medical application built on the world's first Lao large language model, jointly developed by Chinese and Lao companies and released last year, gives the public access to AI-assisted medical help in their own language.

At Thailand's Laem Chabang Port, Chinese AI-powered autonomous trucks and intelligent logistics systems are improving efficiency and worker safety.

For AI practitioners, collaboration with China offers complementary strengths. Duong Duy Truong, chairman of Vietnam's Imex News, said Vietnamese businesses assess AI adoption by whether it can be integrated into specific workflows to improve efficiency, cut costs and create real value.

The companies prioritize ease of use, scalability, Vietnamese-language support and affordability when choosing AI solutions, Duong said. Chinese enterprises possess advantages in technology, products and deployment experience, offering strong potential for cooperation, he added.

Natthawadee Chaiprakhon, a project manager at Thai robotics and automation company Gensurv, also highlighted Southeast Asia's growing AI demand, spanning everyday consumer life and industrial transformation.

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Having visited China twice and worked with Chinese partners, she said the country is "opening up immense opportunities" in AI.

"What stands out most is the vibrant ecosystem of dynamic, highly innovative startups and how seamlessly China has integrated AI across a vast spectrum of real-world systems," she said.

Rather than simply selling off-the-shelf software, Chinese companies demonstrate genuine flexibility in partnering with Southeast Asian businesses — offering localized technology transfer, supply-chain collaboration and joint workforce development, Chaiprakhon said.

"From our direct experience collaborating with Chinese engineers and technology firms, we have found our counterparts to be remarkably open-minded and generous in sharing their technical know-how," she added.

Contact the writers at yangran1@chinadaily.com.cn