China News Service, Hangzhou, October 1 (Xiang Jing) The profound Yangming philosophy has become an AI (artificial intelligence) comic that young people love to follow. The AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) platform can generate a variety of Longquan celadon types with one click. The smart bird watching system allows tourists to "understand" bird songs by wearing headphones... These seemingly unrelated scenes are happening one after another in Zhejiang.
Zhejiang is not only one of the important birthplaces of Chinese civilization, but also a leader in China’s digital economy. The collision of profound humanistic heritage and vigorous digital innovation vitality gives this land the natural advantage to promote the in-depth integration of "culture + technology".
Currently, a new round of technological revolution and industrial changes are taking place, and AI is being integrated into all walks of life at an unprecedented speed. In Zhejiang, AI is not an "invader" that replaces traditional culture, but a "performer" that awakens a thousand-year-old context and activates cultural vitality - it allows the dormant historical context to "speak", allows historical classic industries to "give wings", and turns static scenery into a new tactile and tangible experience.
AI turns into a "time machine" to help historical context "live" in the present
Overlooking the ancient city of Shaoxing, thermal imaging eagle eyes are deployed at high altitudes, and Internet of Things sensing facilities are densely distributed in the streets and alleys to capture fire hazards in real time.
"There are 99 cultural protection units at all levels in the ancient city. Once a fire occurs, the consequences will be serious." Zheng Xujing, a staff member of the Yuecheng District Fire and Rescue Bureau of Shaoxing City, said in an interview that the local area has now formed a closed fire protection loop with AI fire identification, drone patrols, and rapid response by nearby forces to comprehensively protect the style of the ancient city.
This smart fire protection system is mainly built on the digital base of Shaoxing Ancient City. Yu Qi, deputy director of the Shaoxing Famous Cities Office, said in an interview that the 9.09-square-kilometer ancient city of Shaoxing has completed "centimeter-level" surveying and mapping, more than 15,000 buildings have established digital image files, and 302 types of data from 34 departments have been shared and interoperable. "In the future, AI still has broad room for ancient city protection."
The practice of Shaoxing Ancient City is a vivid epitome of AI-enabled cultural heritage protection in Zhejiang Province.
Currently, Zhejiang is vigorously promoting the cultural relics security model integrating "Internet of Things + AI large model + civil air defense", carrying out multi-modal intelligent annotation of cultural relics, ancient buildings, and intangible cultural heritage for the ten major provincial cultural signs such as Liangzhu, Wuyue, and Songyun, and providing high-quality corpus data sets for large-scale cultural and tourism models.
In this transformation, AI is like a "time machine" that travels between ancient and modern times. It not only builds a protective barrier for cultural context, but also allows thousands of years of traditional culture to escape from historical records and classics and "live" in the present.
Recently, the AI comic series "Don't Call Me Mr. Yangming" jointly produced by Yangming Cultural Research Associations in Shaoxing, Ningbo and Guizhou was launched on multiple short video platforms and quickly attracted young people. The story of the play is set in the court of the Ming Dynasty, and incorporates the core principles of Yangming's philosophy such as "the unity of knowledge and action" and "the development of conscience".
"In the past, Yangming culture was mainly spread through forums and lectures, which were heavy in format and young people did not like to watch and could not understand." Ma Shili, vice president of the Shaoxing Wang Yangming Research Association, said frankly during an interview that Zhejiang is the birthplace of Yangming culture, and AIGC provides a new carrier for cultural dissemination.
Looking across Zhejiang Province, various places are using AI to test new cultural narrative methods. For example, Quzhou Jiangshan created the AI micro-short drama "The Legend of Jianglang Cultivation to Immortality", which used natural wonders such as Jianglang Mountain to construct the story of "cultivating immortality"; Hangzhou launched the AI micro-short drama "The Little Noble Man from the Song Dynasty", relying on the ruins of Deoksugung Palace to recreate the urban style of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty.
Xu Rihui, a professor at the School of Humanities and Communication at Zhejiang Gongshang University and former director of the China Tourism Literature Research Institute, said in an interview that Chinese traditional culture has a long history. Nowadays, many young people are using AI to understand the connotation of traditional culture in a simple, intuitive way that suits their own preferences. At the same time, AI weakens the weight of traditional culture with youthful narratives and opens up a new track for the spread of Zhejiang culture.
AI empowers cross-border integration to help the cultural industry "renew"
AI not only protects cultural heritage and enriches cultural expression, but also continues to empower traditional industries and activate the vitality of industrial innovation.
"As long as you enter keywords, the celadon design pattern will be generated quickly." Zhou Yitong, a "post-90s" young man who has been rooted in the Longquan celadon industry for more than ten years, has truly realized the efficiency changes that the "Longquan Celadon AIGC Platform" has brought to the traditional porcelain industry.
Longquan celadon is a very representative historical classic industry in Zhejiang. However, for a long time, the traditional manual production model has had pain points such as long design cycles and high trial and error costs. "In the past, after drawing the renderings, we had to directly make the mold and open the mold. If the effect was not satisfactory, we had to start from scratch." Zhou Yitong said frankly that AI technology has truly optimized the early proofing process.
It is reported that the "Longquan Celadon AIGC Platform" is an important research result achieved by a sub-task of a major scientific and technological project promoted at the provincial level and in collaboration with local governments in Zhejiang. Currently, 90 local celadon companies and youth innovation studios have obtained trial access to the platform for free.
At present, based on historical and classic industrial resources such as celadon, rice wine, and wood carving, Zhejiang is using AI technology to open up the entire chain of creative design, product research and development, and production to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional culture.
At the same time, multiple departments in Zhejiang have jointly planned and deployed major scientific and technological projects on "culture + technology", focusing on key common issues and industrial application needs of cultural digitization. They plan to invest 120 million yuan in Zhejiang provincial fiscal funds within three years, and are expected to mobilize more than 500 million yuan of social capital to participate in the transformation of the cultural industry.
Across the country, AI technology is deeply integrated into the entire cultural industry chain, not only breaking innovation bottlenecks for historical classic industries, but also opening up new space for traditional culture to "go global."
Turning our attention to the Olympic Museum, the masterpiece "World Peace Vase" (Lentil Double Bird Vase) collected by it is a classic representative of Chinese celadon aesthetics. Previously, Ningbo King Group used this as a prototype to design and manufacture a ceramic art Bluetooth speaker with the same name as the "World Peace Bottle". This unique sound shows the charm of traditional Chinese culture to people around the world.
The relevant person in charge of the company said that in recent years, the company has used AI technology to optimize the research and development and design of audio and other products. "For example, on the audio side, AI can suppress environmental noise in real time and improve clarity." Currently, the company's products are exported to more than 100 countries and regions including the United States and Japan.
From cost reduction and efficiency improvement of traditional crafts to cross-border innovation of cultural and creative products, AI is not a single technical tool, but an important engine that runs through the development of Zhejiang's cultural industry, constantly activating the commercial value, communication value and social value of traditional culture.
AI refreshes experience scenarios to help cultural tourism consumption become popular
AI not only empowers cultural inheritance and industrial upgrading, but also comprehensively reconstructs cultural tourism consumption scenarios and activates the vitality of the cultural tourism market.
Winter is approaching, and the "Longyou Bird Watching Resort" located in the north of Longyou is about to welcome a large number of wintering migratory birds. Longyouqi is one of the first bird watching resorts in Zhejiang Province. Nearly 100,000 birds fly there every autumn and winter. AI smart bird watching has also become a popular local cultural and tourism experience scene.
"Usually, birds tend to be frightened and fly away when people approach them." Ying Jianping, a staff member at the Wildlife Conservation and Management Station of the Longyou County Forestry and Water Conservancy Bureau, said in an interview that the intelligent bird monitoring and identification system relies on AI algorithms to intelligently analyze the location, species, quantity and other information of birds. "In other words, tourists can know what kind of bird is in front of them without disturbing the birds."
She also introduced that the local government has launched a slow live broadcast on the "Longyoutong" mobile application to allow tourists to "watch birds in the cloud". At the same time, it is equipped with offline bird specimens, real-life sand tables, telescopes, etc. to transform ecological monitoring data into an immersive cultural tourism experience.
The innovative practice of smart cultural tourism in one place reflects Zhejiang’s overall development idea of empowering cultural tourism experience with technology. Currently, Zhejiang is deeply implementing the three-year action of "Data Elements × Cultural Tourism", promoting the pilot construction of artificial intelligence cultural tourism applications, laying out diverse scenarios such as intelligent cultural explanations, immersive experiences, and smart itinerary planning, and has made it clear that by 2027, it will cultivate 20 new spaces for immersive experience in smart tourism at or above the provincial level.
Driven by both policy empowerment and market demand, many technology companies in Zhejiang have taken advantage of the trend and used mature AI technology to empower the development of new cultural tourism formats across the country.
Recently, thousands of drone light shows were staged on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. This performance was produced by a local company in Zhejiang. Hu Kefei, a member of Jiusan Society and chairman of Zhejiang Gikeqiao Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd., said in an interview that the company originally focused on the field of emergency rescue lighting, but successfully entered the cultural and tourism track with its self-developed AI formation algorithm. This algorithm can accurately control drones to complete shape changes.
In Hu Kefei's view, the forms of traditional night tour projects are converging, while the drone light show is visually novel, which can drive consumption of supporting facilities in scenic spots and turn instantaneous traffic into sustained "retention."
At present, AI is gradually penetrating Zhejiang's cultural tourism scene, enriching product supply, and igniting the cultural tourism consumer market. For example, a scenic spot in Jinhua has launched an AI virtual roaming and intelligent viewing system, unlocking a new way of enjoying the scenery in the cloud; many museums in Hangzhou rely on AI digital human explanations to accurately reach tourists of different age groups with the stories of cultural relics.
Chen Guangsheng, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, publicly stated that "artificial intelligence + cultural tourism" is a profound systemic change. It is necessary to find the right development positioning and development track, to cooperate in depth with leading companies and platforms, and to start from the most realistic cultural and tourism scenes, striving to consolidate the core foundation and better achieve a positive cycle.
From protecting the heritage of a thousand-year-old city, to revitalizing historical classic industries, to lighting up new cultural and tourism scenes across the region, AI is deeply integrated into all aspects of Zhejiang's cultural development in multiple forms, and together with the thousand-year-old cultural context, it composes a beautiful "trifecta" and injects continuous vitality into the high-quality economic and social development of Zhejiang.
