As night fell on Changzhou Science and Education City on May 19, an inspiring intellectual dialogue themed on "AI+" unfolded vividly at CAIC Origin Space.

The themed salon Empowering New Industry, Forging Ahead with AI gathered senior executives from over 20 leading enterprises and industrial experts. Officials of Changzhou Municipal Government and relevant departments attended the event. Wu Aibin, Chairman of Luculent, Xu Mian, General Manager of Ecological Cooperation Headquarters, and Hu Jieying, Chief Technology Officer, were invited to share high-value implementation paths of empowering industrial manufacturing via AI.

“Enterprises should conform to trends and actively embrace AI transformation, enabling technology to return to its essence and empower real industries,” Wu Aibin remarked. He noted that digital transformation currently faces prominent challenges including high investment, slow returns and rapid technological iteration. He suggested local governments build supportive platforms, integrate public resources and industrial application scenarios, establish unified industrial intelligent platforms and remote O&M systems, develop industrial brains and accumulate high-quality industrial data sets. Such moves can effectively avoid redundant construction and resource waste, lower corporate AI application barriers and popularize intelligent upgrading across industries.

Wu Aibin held that to advance AI implementation, local competitive industries shall take the lead in pilot projects, gradually forming a sound development pattern of setting benchmarks, maturing solutions and expanding influence. In addition, leading enterprises shall empower peers and share experience openly, jointly build digital exhibition halls, simulation experience centers and industrial training bases, and organize regular enterprise study tours to consolidate joint industrial development momentum. Moreover, it is vital to further deepen the state-owned-private collaborative development model, unleash innovation vitality of private enterprises and accelerate large-scale promotion by leveraging platform advantages of state-owned enterprises, so as to complement strengths and maximize AI empowering effects.

Given Changzhou solid foundation in equipment manufacturing, Wu Aibin proposed to expand the equipment manufacturing service industry, drive local enterprises to transform and upgrade, and shift from traditional single-product sales to value-added services including technology export, intelligent operation & maintenance and digital management. He called for city-wide efforts to build a national headquarters for equipment digital economy and a national demonstration hub for AI application, and embark on a distinctive high-quality new-type industrialization path.

During the event, Xu Mian delivered a keynote speech entitled AI+ Manufacturing: High-value Scenario Applications and Practices.

Xu Mian pointed out that manufacturing is the best practice ground for AI technologies. The core difficulty of corporate AI application lies not in technical limitations, but in the lack of systematic and engineering-oriented closed-loop thinking, which leads to disconnection among data, business and technology, poor OT-IT integration, inconsistent data quality, weak model generalization ability and opaque decision-making, keeping AI away from full-scale production and operation processes.

The uniqueness of industrial scenarios determines that industrial AI must follow a development path of verticalization, engineering, scenarioization and ecologization. Focusing on process industries such as power, coal, steel and chemical sectors, Luculent has pioneered an integrated application system of vertical domain large models and scenario-based small models, which perfectly meets industrial demands for high security, high reliability and small sample adaptation. Built on cloud-edge-end collaborative architecture, its intensive management system links group decision-making, plant execution and equipment perception to form a full closed loop covering data, model, control and security, realizing explainable, verifiable and replicable engineered implementation of industrial AI.

Xu Mian stressed that technological innovation must be business-value oriented, aiming ultimately at quality improvement, efficiency growth and cost reduction. It is essential to sink AI capabilities into frontline production, deepen layout in high-value scenarios including equipment maintenance, process optimization, safety supervision, energy conservation & carbon reduction and business decision-making, and boost the intelligent, green and integrated development of manufacturing industry.

Upholding the principles of practicality, practicability and tangible results to accelerate innovation achievement transformation, Luculent has delivered numerous outstanding AI+ manufacturing cases: facilitating KSB’s transformation from equipment manufacturer to service-oriented enterprise; helping Baowu-affiliated steel mills cut dust removal fan energy consumption by 10%-15%; establishing a full-coverage intelligent security system for Guoneng Maanshan Power Plant with hidden danger early warning accuracy up to 97.5%; realizing intelligent automatic operation of thermal power units for China Energy Investment Corporation, fully showcasing the solid practical value of industrial AI.

Xu Mian stated that AI+ manufacturing is a systematic project requiring long-term ecological coordination. He advocated in-depth cooperation, joint innovation and joint talent cultivation among enterprises. Teaming up with industrial leaders including China National Coal Group, Luculent commits itself to developing exclusive industrial large models, building intelligent agent applications and tackling frontline production difficulties, turning client scenarios into technological testing grounds and value-empowering platforms. Meanwhile, it unites IT, OT and algorithm experts to build an industry-university-research-application integrated innovation system, converting on-site craftsmanship, equipment mechanisms and O&M experience into reusable and inheritable industrial intellectual assets, so as to achieve long-term co-creation and sharing of industrial AI value.

The second half of the salon adopted relaxed roundtable discussions. Participants had in-depth exchanges on various difficulties in corporate AI transformation, with Luculent professional experts providing targeted solutions. The event featured in-depth idea collisions, pooled new development ideas for the industry, and delivered substantial and far-reaching insights for industrial advancement.