National Development and Reform Commission: Deeply Implementing the "AI Plus" Initiative to Provide Strong Momentum for High-Quality Development
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized: "As a strategic technology leading the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing human modes of production and lifestyles." The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee explicitly identified AI as a strategic industry, promoting the digital and intelligent transformation [1] of all sectors to inject new momentum into high-quality development. The State Council recently issued the "Opinions on the In-depth Implementation of the 'AI Plus' Action," providing guiding opinions at the national level for the application and development of AI across all industries and fields, while clarifying the timetable and roadmap. We must conscientiously implement the decision-making and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, vigorously promote the commercialization and large-scale application of AI, and accelerate the extensive and deep integration of AI with all areas of economy and society. This will contribute strength to empowering high-quality development and better serving the construction of socialist modernization.
Deeply Grasping the Great Significance of Implementing the "AI Plus" Action
Currently, AI technology is undergoing accelerated iterative evolution, exerting a significant and far-reaching impact on economic development, social progress, and the global political and economic landscape. Deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action to promote the deep integration of AI with economy and society is both an urgent task we currently face and a strategic proposition concerning long-term development.
Deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action is a strategic choice to seize the opportunities of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Accelerating the development of a new generation of AI is a strategic issue related to whether China can seize the opportunities of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation." Historical development shows that every technological revolution brings an exponential leap in productive forces and drives a profound evolution of social forms. As another epoch-making transformative technology following the steam engine, electricity, and the Internet, AI is driving economic and social development toward a new stage of intelligence with unprecedented speed, breadth, and depth. The implementation of the "AI Plus" action reflects the Party Central Committee and State Council's profound insight and forward-looking planning regarding global trends in scientific and technological development; it is an important mechanism for gaining the initiative in global technological competition.
Deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action is an inherent requirement for cultivating and developing new quality productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Scientific and technological innovation is the core element for developing new quality productive forces." As a major driving force of the new round of technological revolution, the current rapid development of AI has reached a historical confluence with China’s cultivation of new quality productive forces and its promotion of high-quality development. AI possesses a strong "bellwether" [2] spillover effect; through the innovative configuration of factors such as capital, labor, technology, and data, it significantly improves total factor productivity and promotes a revolutionary leap in productive forces. Implementing the "AI Plus" action and actively promoting the deep integration of AI with the real economy will help move industries toward the high end of the value chain, promote a shift in growth models from factor-driven to innovation-driven, and continuously give rise to new technologies, new business forms, and new models, forming the core engine for the development of new quality productive forces.
Deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action is an important way to meet the people's needs for a better life. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must strengthen the combination of AI with the promotion and improvement of people's livelihoods. Starting from the needs of securing and improving livelihoods and creating a better life for the people, we must promote the deep application of AI in people's daily work, study, and life, and create more intelligent ways of working and living." Implementing the "AI Plus" action requires focusing on prominent contradictions and difficulties in the field of people's livelihoods, strengthening the deep application of AI in key areas related to the vital interests of the masses—such as healthcare, education, transportation, and assistance for the disabled and elderly—and promoting the shared enjoyment of AI development achievements by all people.
Deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action is a proactive measure to help the world participate equally in the process of intelligent development. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Artificial intelligence can be an international public good that benefits humanity." Currently, AI development faces challenges such as the fragmentation of global governance mechanisms and "bloc-based" polarization [3]; the gap in intelligent development among countries is widening, making it urgent to improve the global governance system and work together for win-win development. By deeply implementing the "AI Plus" action, building an AI ecosystem with global influence, deepening high-level opening up in the field of AI, and promoting open-source accessibility of AI technology, China helps promote the formation of a global governance framework and standard norms based on broad consensus, assisting all countries in participating equally in the global intelligent development process.
Comprehensively Grasping the Advantageous Conditions for Implementing the "AI Plus" Action
Under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, China's AI has developed rapidly, achieving an overall and systematic leap in comprehensive strength. Our developmental advantages have become further highlighted; meanwhile, rich data resources, a complete industrial system, diverse application scenarios, vast market space, and concentrated talent resources create favorable conditions and lay a solid foundation for the deep implementation of the "AI Plus" action.
Rich data resources provide critical factor support. As the key "raw material" for AI model training and iteration, the scale, quality, diversity, and timeliness of data directly determine the performance ceiling of AI. Currently, with the development of large-scale model technology, the demand for high-quality corpus data is expanding from generalized areas toward professional, scenario-based, and multi-modal depths. Relying on its foundation in network and digital construction, China has accumulated massive, diverse, and dynamic data resources. In 2024, the total amount of data produced nationwide reached 41.06 zettabytes (ZB), accounting for 26.67% of the global total; the amount of data used for AI development, training, and inference increased by 40.95% year-on-year.
A complete industrial system provides a strong material and technical guarantee. As the only country in the world to possess all industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification, China has an industrial system comprising 41 major categories, 207 medium categories, and 666 small categories, with the output of over 200 major industrial products ranking first in the world. This industrial ecosystem—with its complete chain, comprehensive supporting facilities, and full availability of factors—provides full-chain support for AI technology from R&D verification and product design to manufacturing and delivery. This will greatly promote the rapid transformation of technological innovation into products and services, forming a unique advantage for promoting the large-scale implementation and application of AI.
Rich application scenarios provide a broad space for development. The vitality of AI lies in its application. Complex constraints and diversified needs in real-world scenarios continuously drive the evolution of AI technology and performance improvements. China possesses a complete and diverse application ecosystem covering key fields such as intelligent manufacturing, smart healthcare, digital finance, intelligent transportation, and smart education. This provides the best "proving ground" for refining advanced capabilities such as complex reasoning, dynamic decision-making, and adaptive learning. Currently, China has released over 1,500 industry models, covering 50 key industrial fields and more than 700 scenarios.
Vast market space provides endogenous development momentum. China has a population of over 1.4 billion, approximately 200 million business entities, and a middle-income group of over 400 million people; it has remained the world's second-largest commodity consumption market and the largest online retail market for over 10 consecutive years. A huge population base, continuously upgrading consumption capacity, and strong corporate innovation vitality are conducive to diluting R&D costs, accelerating technological iterations, and promoting application standardization. This provides a broad market space for promoting AI applications such as next-generation intelligent terminals and AI agents.
Ultra-large-scale talent resources provide confidence and assurance. AI theoretical innovation, algorithmic breakthroughs, and practical applications all depend on multi-level, cross-disciplinary talent. China has built the world's largest and most high-quality education system. Its total talent resources, total scientific and technological human resources, and total R&D personnel all rank first in the world. With nearly 10 million software developers and a solid talent foundation accumulated in multiple disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, and engineering, China provides a strong talent guarantee and intellectual support for continuous AI innovation and large-scale application.
Striving to Open a New Situation for "AI Plus" Development in the New Era
The deep implementation of "AI Plus" is a long-term and complex systemic project. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will follow the decision-making and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, focus on the overall arrangements of the "AI Plus" action, give full play to its role in overall planning and coordination, strengthen departmental synergy, central-local linkage, and social participation, and broadly mobilize all forces to form a working synergy and solidly promote various tasks to achieve practical results.
Building an innovative and active intelligent economy. Accelerate the promotion of the new AI-driven scientific research paradigm; accelerate the process of major scientific discoveries "from 0 to 1," and the implementation and iterative breakthroughs of technologies "from 1 to N." Deeply promote the intelligent development of all industrial factors, accelerate the intelligent transformation and upgrading of industry, agriculture, and the service sector, develop "AI-native" technologies, products, and service systems, and give rise to new AI-native business forms. Strengthen the construction of intelligent consumption infrastructure and promote the "Intelligent Internet of Everything" for intelligent terminals, allowing AI to enter "thousands of households" and "thousands of businesses."
Creating a more compassionate intelligent society. Give priority to lowering the threshold for AI application in livelihood areas such as employment, health, elderly care, education, and culture, and accelerate the universal application of AI products and services such as health assistants and intelligent study partners. Orderly advance the application of AI in social governance, security governance, and ecological governance to form an efficient and diversified governance landscape. Treat AI as an international public good that benefits humanity, promote the inclusive sharing of AI, and help all countries participate equally in the process of intelligence.
Strengthening the factor support for AI development. Accelerate the construction of high-quality corpora and industry datasets, improve systems for data property rights, copyrights, and income distribution, and strengthen innovation in data supply. Coordinate the layout of intelligent computing infrastructure, fully leverage the role of the "East Data, West Computing" national hubs, and strengthen the synergistic configuration of resources such as data, computing power, electricity, and networks. Vigorously promote original innovation and the cultivation of open-source ecosystems, support multi-path technological exploration and infrastructure innovation, and enhance basic model capabilities. Strengthen the recruitment and cultivation of AI talent, and build a new, "out-of-the-norm" model for cultivating leading talent.
Improving the innovative development environment for AI applications. Strengthen the exemplary and leading role of government departments and state-owned enterprises, improve management systems that allow for trial and error in applications, and promote the orderly opening of key scenarios. Increase financial and fiscal support for the AI field, improve risk-sharing and investment exit mechanisms, and further stimulate the vitality of the AI investment and financing market. Layout and build a batch of national AI application pilot bases, set up common platforms for industry applications, lower the threshold for application innovation, and promote the efficient transformation of innovative achievements. Promote the integrated development of large, medium, and small enterprises, accelerate the coordinated development of the upstream and downstream of the AI industrial chain, and build an AI industrial ecosystem characterized by resource sharing, complementary capabilities, and benign interaction.
Building a solid safety barrier for AI applications. Vigorously support AI skills training, stimulate the vitality of AI innovation, entrepreneurship, and re-employment, and guide innovation resources toward directions with great potential for job creation. Strengthen the assessment of employment risks in AI applications to reduce the impact on employment. Promote the construction of security capabilities for model algorithms, data resources, infrastructure, and application systems; establish and improve AI technology monitoring, risk early warning, and emergency response systems; and accelerate the formation of a dynamic, agile, and multi-party collaborative AI governance landscape, promoting AI applications that are compliant, transparent, and trustworthy.