Wuhan prepares Rp2.4 trillion, wants to be China's AI agent city

JAKARTA - Wuhan is preparing to invest more than 1 billion yuan or around US$147 million in three years to build an AI agent city in the Optics Valley area, Hubei Province, China.

Launching a report by Yicai Global, quoted Wednesday, July 1, Optics Valley has long been known as the world's largest optical fiber cable manufacturing base. The area now wants to become a major center for the development of AI agents, namely artificial intelligence systems that are capable of carrying out more independent tasks.

The target is big. By 2029, Optics Valley wants to nurture 100 influential AI agent companies, launch 1,000 AI agent products, and attract 10,000 developers.

To pursue this target, the high-tech area will expand its computing infrastructure. Wuhan City official Sheng Yue said the Optics Valley's intelligent computing capacity is targeted to double to 10,000 PetaFlops this year.

PetaFlops is a measure of a computer's ability to perform very large numbers of calculation operations. In the development of AI, computing capacity is the main fuel because AI models and applications require high processing power.

Companies that rent AI computing resources in the region can receive subsidies of up to 50 percent of the rental cost. The best pilot projects each year also have the opportunity to receive grants of up to 3 million yuan or around US$441,700.

Optics Valley will provide real test space for AI agent developers. The field includes government, cultural and tourism services, as well as smart city applications.

The Executive Director of the PKU-Wuhan Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Wu Zhiqiang, told Yicai Global that the three key factors for the development of AI agents are computing power, data, and talent. According to him, Optics Valley has strengths in these three areas.

The area is the location of the Wuhan Artificial Intelligence Computing Center, Wuhan Supercomputing Center, and smart computing centers owned by three major Chinese operators, namely China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom. The infrastructure makes Optics Valley have one of the largest computing capacities in central China.

Based on official data, the value of the AI industry in Optics Valley jumped 45 percent in the first five months of this year to 40 billion yuan or about US$5.9 billion.

Throughout the year, the value of the region's AI industry is estimated to reach 100 billion yuan. This figure is projected to place Wuhan in the ranks of the leading AI development cities in China.