- 142,000-square-meter facility aims to bring AI from lab research into real-world cultural applications
- Tech giants including Alibaba, Huawei and telecom operators join platform build-out
China launched its first national-level AI pilot base dedicated to culture and tourism on May 28, in a move aimed at accelerating the commercialization of AI tools across heritage, media and travel industries.
The National AI Application Pilot Base for Culture and Tourism, located in Hangzhou’s Gongshu District, spans 142,000 square meters and is designed to function as a large-scale testing and incubation platform for applied AI in cultural scenarios.
Authorities described the facility as a “super AI laboratory” for the sector, intended to shift AI applications from academic research into real-world use cases across tourism, museums and cultural production.
Multiple applications
The base allows companies and institutions to test AI tools in practical environments.
These range from restoring ancient paintings and reconstructing historical architecture to generating scripts, producing short-form video content and building travel planning applications.
Startups, for example, will be able to develop AI travel recommendation tools by accessing computing power and real-world tourism data. They can iterate and refine products before commercial rollout.
Museums will be able to use the platform to experiment with AI-assisted restoration and immersive guided tours, without building systems from scratch.
Four core areas
The facility focuses on four core areas: cultural heritage protection, cultural production, content dissemination and tourism integration.
It is supported by five functional systems covering computing power, data access, model development, application deployment and scenario validation.
On launch day, Alibaba Cloud, Ant Group, Huawei, Lenovo and other technology companies signed cooperation agreements to participate in the development of the platform.
China’s three major telecom operators — China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom — also joined the initiative.
Four innovation platforms were launched alongside the base, each tied to a different industry partner.
These include a “HappyToken Factory” jointly developed by Alibaba Cloud and Zhewen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (浙文智能), a company focused on the intersection of AI and cultural tourism.
The three other hubs include a tourism scenario innovation center with Huawei, a joint tourism applications lab with Lenovo, and an industry-education integration center set up with Huace Film & TV (华策影视), a media and entertainment firm.
Exporting Chinese content
Separately, officials held a conference focused on using AI to support the global expansion of cultural content, launching a copyright operations center for online short dramas and announcing a global university AIGC creation competition.
Officials said the initiative is intended not only to serve as a testing ground for AI in culture and tourism, but also as a launchpad for exporting Chinese cultural content globally.
The project reflects Hangzhou’s broader drive to reposition itself from an industrial base into a hub for digital cultural innovation, using AI to reshape how heritage is preserved, produced and distributed.
