Relevant responsible officials of the National Development and Reform Commission answer reporters' questions on the "Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces"

Q: Why does the Opinions highlight the comprehensive implementation of the "AI Plus" initiative? A: In the section on "promoting the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation," the Opinions mainly outline such content as "transforming and upgrading traditional industries," "cultivating and strengthening emerging industries," "making forward-looking arrangements for future industries," and "promoting the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy." The highlight on "comprehensively implementing the 'AI Plus' initiative" is based mainly on three considerations. First, AI is a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation in the digital economy era. At present, global AI technology is accelerating in iterative evolution, and accelerating the development of a new generation of AI has become a strategic issue concerning whether China can seize the opportunities of this new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. In the section on building a modern industrial system, the Opinions highlights the comprehensive implementation of the "AI Plus" initiative in order to leverage China's advantages, including a complete industrial system, a huge market scale, and rich application scenarios, to use practical applications to accelerate the continuous growth of AI technology and form a virtuous cycle in which innovation drives application and application promotes innovation. Second, AI is the core support for developing new quality productive forces and building a modern industrial system. AI is moving from laboratories into production and daily life, giving rise to new fields and new tracks such as autonomous driving, humanoid robots, autonomously flying drones, brain-computer interfaces, smartphones, smart TVs, smart computers, and smart wearable devices. At the same time, it also plays an important role in empowering the upgrading of traditional industries. The Opinions highlights the comprehensive implementation of the "AI Plus" initiative in order to promote the deep integration of AI and the real economy, help transform and upgrade traditional industries, cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, and make forward-looking arrangements for future industries, promptly apply innovation achievements in the intelligent field to specific industries and specific industrial chains, drive the high-end and green development of industries through intelligentization, and empower the transformation and upgrading of all industries. Third, breakthroughs in AI technology and large-scale commercial application are a long-term and complex systemic project. From the perspective of scientific and technological breakthroughs, it is necessary to strengthen basic theoretical research and key core technology innovation, and build an independent, controllable, and collaboratively operating basic software and hardware system. From the perspective of factor support, it is necessary to coordinate the advancement of computing power infrastructure construction, deepen the development, utilization, openness, and sharing of data resources, and strengthen the introduction and cultivation of talent. From the perspective of large-scale application, it is necessary to promote the deep integration of AI with all industries and sectors, and build an innovative and dynamic intelligent economy and a more caring intelligent society. From the perspective of security assurance, it is necessary to step up the formulation and improvement of relevant laws and regulations, policy systems, application standards, and ethical guidelines, and build a system for technology monitoring, risk warning, and emergency response to ensure that AI is safe, reliable, and controllable. The Opinions highlights the comprehensive implementation of the "AI Plus" initiative in order to better implement this complex systemic project.