Is this an opportunity for Henan to "overtake on a curve"?

Since the beginning of this year, major central provinces have collectively increased their investment in AI.

At the beginning of the year, central provinces such as Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Hunan, and Shanxi all mentioned artificial intelligence in their key development tasks, either promoting the "Artificial Intelligence +" initiative or building artificial intelligence clusters. Currently, Henan has taken the lead in making a significant investment -

Recently issued "Several Policy Measures of Henan Province to Support the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Ecosystem" (hereinafter referred to as the "Henan Measures") proposes to promote the in - depth integration of artificial intelligence technological innovation and industrial innovation, and build a new high - ground for artificial intelligence development.

It specifically puts forward 10 "tangible" support policies, including setting up an artificial intelligence industry fund with a total scale of 3 billion yuan, and providing one - time financial support of 1 million yuan to enterprises that newly pass the record - filing of generative artificial intelligence models by the National Internet Information Office.

These policies cover ten major aspects such as model R & D and application, computing power supply services, data development and utilization, application scenario cultivation, key technology research, talent introduction and cultivation, and diversified investment and financing services, targeting the difficulties and pain points in the development of the artificial intelligence industry.

As a major economic and populous province, Henan has a vast amount of data resources and market demand. However, objectively speaking, its artificial intelligence industry started relatively late, and there is still a certain gap in its development level compared with central provinces such as Anhui and Hubei. In the past two years, however, Henan has deeply promoted the "Artificial Intelligence +" initiative, regarding it as an important driving force for transformation and upgrading, and has been making frequent efforts.

As industry experts said, with the rapid development of global technology, AI is gradually highlighting its key role in the new round of industrial transformation and productivity improvement. A new era is approaching at a rapid pace, which contains both infinite opportunities and many challenges and disruptions.

Is AI an opportunity for Henan to overtake on a curve?

Racing in AI

In the view of Shan Zhiguang, the director of the Informatization and Industrial Development Department of the National Information Center, pre - trained large models represented by ChatGPT and DeepSeek have continuously made breakthroughs, promoting the transformation of artificial intelligence from perception to cognition, from analytical and judgment - based to generative, and from specialized to general, entering a new stage of rapid development.

In April this year, the "Research on the Regional Competitiveness of Artificial Intelligence in China" released by CCID Consulting showed that the scale of China's artificial intelligence industry reached 708.34 billion yuan in 2024, a year - on - year increase of 20.4%. Among them, the market shares of basic components, key core technologies, and industry application solutions accounted for 20.3%, 31.0%, and 48.7% respectively.

This also brings new driving forces for the industrial transformation and upgrading of various regions. Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai, with their rich enterprise resources, account for 60% of the national artificial intelligence industry scale, and are undoubtedly in the "first echelon". Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui, together with them, form the six major intelligent industry clusters in China, playing the role of "leaders".

Image source: "Research on the Regional Competitiveness of Artificial Intelligence in China"

When ChatGPT set off a boom in 2023 and various regions issued policies intensively to keep up, Anhui had taken the lead. In 2018, Anhui specifically formulated a special plan for a new generation of artificial intelligence, and in 2021, it listed it as one of the "top ten" strategic emerging industries and promoted it at a high level, forming industrial clusters such as the "China Sound Valley" in Hefei, the "World Vision Valley" in Wuhu, and the "China Sensation Valley" in Bengbu.

Since the beginning of this year, central provinces have also been relying on the "Artificial Intelligence +" initiative to accelerate the occupation of the artificial intelligence high - ground -

In March, the "Action Plan of Anhui Province to Accelerate the Promotion of the 'Artificial Intelligence +'" was released. By 2030, artificial intelligence should be deeply integrated with economic and social development and become an important engine for accelerating the cultivation and development of new - quality productive forces.

In May, Wang Zhonglin, the secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, emphasized that efforts should be made to continuously extend, supplement, and strengthen the industrial chain to build an internationally competitive artificial intelligence industry cluster.

In May, the "Collaborative Implementation Plan of Jiangxi Province for the Digital Transformation of Artificial Intelligence and the Manufacturing Industry" was released. By 2027, it aims to build a number of high - quality industry data sets, form more than 20 vertical industry models, and create about 100 typical application scenarios for demonstration and leadership...

This is also a vivid side view of the collective investment in AI by central regions. Currently, Henan is also going all out.

In the "Henan Measures", from providing one - time financial support of 1 million yuan to enterprises that pass the record - filing of generative artificial intelligence models, to providing a maximum subsidy of 1 million yuan per year for high - quality corpora used in large - model development, training, and fine - tuning, and providing one - time financial support of up to 2 million yuan to provincial artificial intelligence industry empowerment centers, it provides full - chain support for the accelerated development of the artificial intelligence industry.

Even from a national perspective, Henan's support is relatively strong. In particular, setting up an artificial intelligence industry fund with a total scale of 3 billion yuan, ranking among the top in the central region, will further leverage more development factors to gather in artificial intelligence and accelerate the construction of a new high - ground for artificial intelligence development.

Industrial Landscape

"Henan is an important economic, industrial, and populous province in the country, with a vast amount of data resources, rich application scenarios, and a broad market space. It has the advantages and conditions to achieve breakthrough development in the field of artificial intelligence," said a relevant person in charge of the Henan Provincial Development and Reform Commission.

This is Henan's greatest confidence in competing in the artificial intelligence industry. Behind artificial intelligence is the in - depth integration of the three pillars of algorithms, computing power, and data, which, like "three carriages", drive AI into all industries and reshape the industrial landscape. In the fields of computing power and data, Henan has accumulated considerable advantages.

In the past few years, Henan has planned and built a number of computing power facilities such as the National Supercomputing Center in Zhengzhou, the Zhengzhou Artificial Intelligence Computing Center, and the 360 Central China Intelligent Computing Center. There are more than 100 computing power centers that have been built, are under construction, or are planned to be built in the province, and the computing power supply and scheduling capabilities are constantly improving.

Schematic diagram of the locations of the eight computing power hubs in the national "Eastern Data and Western Computing" project. Image source: The official website of the National Development and Reform Commission

Zhengzhou is located at the geographical center of the eight computing power hub nodes in the national "Eastern Data and Western Computing" project and is becoming a national computing power transfer and distribution hub and a communication network exchange hub. With Zhengzhou as the core and Xuchang and Hebi as the key points, the prototype of a computing industry development pattern has emerged. Relying on key enterprises such as Inspur Hyper - Fusion, Huanghe Information Industry, Zhengzhou Inspur, and Loongson Central China, an advanced computing industry chain from complete machines to key components such as chips, motherboards, and peripheral devices has been formed.

The transformation of this advanced computing from "nothing to something" to "locally leading" is a manifestation of Henan's effective efforts in the artificial intelligence industry. According to the plan, Henan is coordinating the coordinated development of "general computing + intelligent computing + supercomputing", accelerating the construction of an overall layout of "one core, four poles, and multiple points" with Zhengzhou (including the Airport Economic Zone) as the core, Luoyang, Hebi, Shangqiu, and Xinyang as regional growth poles, and various places providing multi - point supporting development, and guiding the intensive construction of computing power centers.

Data shows that in 2024, Inspur Hyper - Fusion achieved an output value of 43 billion yuan, ranking first in the domestic market for artificial intelligence servers and domestic servers. Henan is accelerating the construction of intelligent computing centers such as the Henan Airport Intelligent Computing Center and the Central China Computing Valley. It is expected that by the end of 2025, the computing power scale will exceed 94 EFlops, entering the national "first echelon".

If computing power is the "engine" of artificial intelligence, then data is its "fuel".

On the Longzihu Smart Island in Zhengdong New Area, the Zhengzhou Data Exchange Center pioneered a new model of a unified data exchange platform jointly built by the whole province in the country. It has listed more than 1,500 data assets and put more than 1,500 data services on the shelves, with a cumulative transaction volume of more than 2 billion yuan. Not far away is the China Electronics (Zhengzhou) Data Innovation Center, known as the "first building" of data elements in Henan, which will jointly support Zhengzhou in building an important "data warehouse, data hub, and data port" in the country.

According to the plan, by 2025, the scale of the big data industry in the province should exceed 200 billion yuan, the data transaction volume of the Zhengzhou Data Exchange Center should exceed 5 billion yuan, more than 100 typical big data solutions and application cases should be created, and the computing power scale should enter the national first echelon.

All signs indicate that whether it is advanced computing power or data elements, Zhengzhou is leading Henan to leap into the national "first echelon" and supporting the artificial intelligence industry to "reach for higher goals".

According to the Zhengzhou Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau, currently, the scale of the core artificial intelligence industry in Zhengzhou has exceeded 30 billion yuan. The industrial clusters of intelligent terminals, intelligent connected vehicles, intelligent sensors, and intelligent equipment have grown and expanded, driving the scale of artificial - intelligence - related industries to exceed 100 billion yuan.

Coupled with the rapid rise of the robot industry in Luoyang and the continuous improvement of the intelligent level of power equipment in Xuchang, artificial intelligence is reshaping Henan's industrial landscape.

How to Break Through

A month ago, Wang Kai, the governor of Henan Province, emphasized during a research that artificial intelligence is a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. We should raise awareness, seize opportunities, accurately grasp the industry development trend, promote the healthy and orderly development of artificial intelligence, and cultivate new driving forces and shape new advantages on the new track.

This is also an important reason for Henan to fully "bet" on artificial intelligence.

In the first half of this year, Henan's GDP reached 3.16838 trillion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 5.7%, slightly higher than the national average growth rate. However, the growth rates of Zhengzhou and Luoyang have slowed down. To a certain extent, this also reflects that Henan needs new growth drivers, and artificial intelligence, which can empower all industries, is the best breakthrough point.

Image source: The official website of the Henan Provincial Government

In June this year, the Ninth Plenary Session of the 11th Henan Provincial Party Committee proposed that the next five years are a critical stage for Henan's development to accumulate strength and achieve a leap - forward rise. It will strive to build itself into a strong agricultural province, a strong manufacturing province, a strong digital and intelligent province, a strong transportation province, and a strong cultural and tourism province. These five "strong provinces" support each other, are deeply integrated, and work together. The concept of a "strong digital and intelligent province" was proposed for the first time at the provincial level in Henan.

Intelligent manufacturing is the core of a strong manufacturing province, and digital and intelligent technologies empower manufacturing upgrading. Deeply promoting the "Artificial Intelligence +" initiative and building a new high - ground for artificial intelligence development are important means for Henan to promote the empowerment of industrial upgrading by artificial intelligence.

However, objectively speaking, Henan still faces considerable challenges. "For a long time, the proportion of traditional industries in Henan Province has been relatively high. As an emerging industry, artificial intelligence started late in Henan, and the industrial foundation is weak," Song Ge, an associate researcher at the Institute of Digital Economy and Industrial Economy of the Henan Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed in an article.

Although Henan has made arrangements in supercomputing, intelligent computing, and general computing, and the computing power has initially taken shape, the current computing system in the province is still dominated by traditional CPUs. The existing computing power resources in the province cannot effectively support the training and reasoning of cutting - edge algorithms such as large models, and the actual utilization rate of computing power infrastructure is not high.

In Song Ge's view, in recent years, although Henan has achieved certain results in the field of artificial intelligence, there are still obvious short - boards in different dimensions such as industrial foundation, innovation ability, scenario implementation, leading enterprises, and industrial ecosystem. It is necessary to further improve the top - level design, take scenarios as the guide and applications as the orientation, make up for industrial short - boards, enhance the advantages of the industrial chain, and accelerate the construction of a nationally influential artificial intelligence industry high - ground and an innovation application demonstration area.

From this perspective, the "Henan Measures" emphasize measures such as strengthening model R & D and application, enhancing computing power supply services, promoting data development and utilization, deepening application scenario cultivation, promoting key technology research, and talent introduction and cultivation, aiming to quickly make up for the development "short - boards" of the artificial intelligence industry.

Of course, the cultivation of the artificial intelligence industry is a systematic project and a long - term process. For Henan, the "first economic province in the central region", the journey of "turning around like an elephant" with the wave of AI has just begun.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Urban Evolution Theory", author: Dan Zhongkui. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.