The launch ceremony of the iFlytek Wuxi Industrial Acceleration Center and the Wuxi Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park is held in Wuxi Software Park, Wuxi, Jiangsu province, on Oct 31. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Wuxi, a major industrial manufacturing hub with over 80,000 industrial enterprises, celebrated the launch of the iFlytek Wuxi Industrial Acceleration Center and the Wuxi Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park on Oct 31, marking a new chapter for AI-driven manufacturing support.

Covering a floor area of 390,000 square meters, the AI industrial park is located in Wuxi Software Park, Wuxi National Hi-Tech District. It is the city's first facility of this kind, concentrating on key fields like multimodal large language models, generative AI, and humanoid robots.

The Corona Borealis Building B in the industrial park will serve as the first phase of the "AI Industry Ecological Agglomeration Zone". This building will bring together top manufacturing enterprises and provide demand matching and computing support, facilitating their entire AI workflow — from solution development and access to computing resources to collaboration.

The "Xishu Factory" AI industry service platform has been created in the building, resembling a supermarket that offers a variety of solutions to empower the manufacturing industry with AI technologies.

The Xishu Factory AI industry service platform allows visitors to experience firsthand the new changes that AI brings to production and life. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Wuxi's strong and solid industrial foundation and its excellent performance in the internet of things (IoT) industry are the main reasons we choose to cooperate with the city," said Fang Ming, vice-president of China's AI and intelligent speech giant iFlytek.

iFlytek owns an open platform, with currently an estimated 9 million developers worldwide certified as its partners.

"The newly launched industrial acceleration center in Wuxi is a large incubator. Combining the upgrading of Wuxi's industry with our essential scenario applications, iFlytek aims to attract our online developers to this center so that their products and projects can take root, grow, and bear fruit in Wuxi," added Fang.

During the launch ceremony, the Yangtze River Delta AIoT Collaborative Innovation Alliance was also unveiled, aiming to become a well-known connector and accelerator in the AIoT field — driven by the deep integration of AI and IoT — in the YRD region.

The alliance will advance technological innovation, facilitate achievement transformation, and strengthen the integration of industry, education, and talent development, said Chen Miaoxuan, vice-chairman of Wuxi Association for Artificial Intelligence.

The Wuxi Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park is expected to bring a 20 billion yuan ($2.81 billion) industrial increment within five years. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zheng Jiangwei, head of Wuxi Software Park, said that to promote the early integration of AI and the manufacturing industry, a support system will be put in place. This system will focus on integrating policy, services, and resources to reduce cooperation barriers and accelerate the implementation of AI scenarios in the industrial park.

By 2027, Wuxi's AI industry is projected to surpass 300 billion yuan in scale.