The World Artificial Intelligence Open Source Competition concluded in Hangzhou, and a team of Zhejiang University graduates won the grand prize

China News Service, Hangzhou, September 25 (Bao Mengni) The World Open Source Artificial Intelligence Competition (GOAI) recently concluded in Hangzhou. Wang Zhe, a graduate of Zhejiang University, led a team to develop a life science-related project that won the grand prize and a bonus of 1 million yuan.

"This set of algorithms is a tool that can be directly used in the research and development of innovative drugs in enterprises. It can effectively reduce research and development costs and speed up research and development through artificial intelligence (AI) screening." Wang Zhe said frankly that in the field of life sciences in recent years, AI has changed from a supporting role to a mainstream role, and the rate of change is extremely fast. "I have been working in the medical field for more than ten years. Because of this change, I found that I can truly develop my abilities as a programming enthusiast."

In GOAI, there are many more stories like this. The competition attracted more than 14,000 developers from 91 countries and regions around the world to sign up and received 2,999 valid preliminary entries. In the end, 70 projects advanced to the finals.

World Artificial Intelligence Open Source Competition (GOAI) Award Ceremony. Photo provided by the organizer

Why does Hangzhou want to host such a competition?

The answer can be found in the slogan of the competition - "Open.Share.Build. (Open, share and build together)". Openness allows more innovative forces to gather in Hangzhou; sharing allows technology, experience and results to continue to flow; and co-construction allows excellent results to be continuously improved in practical applications.

The organizer revealed that among the works that were shortlisted for the semi-finals of this competition, 94% chose open source; the teams that were shortlisted for the finals all opened up their codes, tools and results in different forms. "It's like taking a building block from the 'community' and putting the one you've done well on top. This is the simplest cycle of open source." said Wang Yu, a tenured professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University and a representative of the Hangzhou Open Source Artificial Intelligence Foundation.

This game left a lot of "wealth" for Hangzhou.

On the one hand, it is about "bringing in". The organizers will continue to pay attention to the top 70 projects in the competition and other potential projects, and continue to promote their connection with industry, capital and scientific research institutions after the competition. On the other hand, it is about "building bridges". The competition connects developers, universities, technology companies, open source communities, industrial institutions and urban collaborative networks around the world.

"We have connected many young people to start their own businesses in Hangzhou, and provided sufficient computing power and financial support." According to Huo Taiwen, the representative of the competition organizer, Hangzhou is regarded as the source of AI innovation. Universities, governments, enterprises and startups all have an open mind and have a better service awareness than other regions, which constitutes a unique competitive advantage. GOAI is not only a competition, but also hopes to bring more innovative forces together through openness.

At present, Hangzhou is striving to become the first city in the innovation and development of artificial intelligence. Hosting GOAI can be regarded as the first move for the city to deeply integrate into the construction of global AI open source ecosystem and use innovation as a source of "blocking" AI competition.

From the perspective of GOAI competition settings, the four major tracks of New Intelligence Base, Unbounded Application, Frontier Exploration, and Embodied Future respond to the four directions of the AI ​​open source era.

Among them, the New Intelligence Base track focuses on multi-agent infrastructure and collaborative systems under enterprise-level complex tasks, promoting enterprise intelligence from technology demonstration to product implementation. The Unbounded Application Track focuses on the application of AI Agent in high-frequency scenarios such as automobile travel, financial services, education, and industrial manufacturing, and promotes AI from "being able to answer" to "being able to complete tasks." The cutting-edge exploration track focuses on the intersection of AI and science, setting up two paths: algorithmic competition questions and open exploration questions, to promote AI to become an effective tool for scientific discovery. The Embodied Future Track is oriented to real problems in the interaction between robots and the physical world, focusing on open embodied intelligent systems that can “perceive, make decisions, and execute”.

At the 5th Global Digital Trade Expo, Yushu Technology’s manned transforming mecha attracted attention. Photo by Wang Gang

This also coincides with many "new atmospheres" in Hangzhou. For example, as the largest AI open source community in China, the local Moda community has brought together more than 29 million global developers, and a large number of domestic open source base models have been released here; Zhijiang Laboratory focuses on "AI for Science" and released large models of porous alloy AI materials to empower the research and development of new materials; local embodied intelligence enterprise clusters such as Yushu Technology and Yunshencheng frequently release leading robot products.

In the practical context of Hangzhou, the source of AI innovation is not a single breakthrough, but a systematic project that runs through the entire chain. One end consolidates the foundation of original innovation such as basic research, underlying algorithms, and computing base, and tackles key core technologies such as large models, embodied intelligence, and open source ecology; the other end gathers innovative elements, lays out pilot transformations, incubates emerging tracks, and radiates outward to drive the iteration of industrial clusters.

This idea is also reflected in municipal-level policies. For example, the "Hangzhou High-Quality Development Action Plan for the Whole Artificial Intelligence Industry Chain (2024-2026)" proposes to focus on the basic layer (computing power infrastructure), basic layer (computing power infrastructure), and application layer (artificial intelligence typical scenarios), and strive to create a national computing power cost depression, a city with the best model ecology, and a highland for the development of the artificial intelligence industry.

In addition, the recently implemented "Implementation Plan on Accelerating Scenario Cultivation and Opening to Promote Large-Scale Application of New Scenarios (2026-2027)" clearly states that the overall goal is to build Hangzhou into a national leading city for scenario open innovation. Starting from 2026, it will strive to cultivate and open more than 200 high-quality scenario resources every year and promote more than 60 scenario cooperation projects.

From building the “Silicon Valley of Paradise” to positioning itself as an “innovative city with vitality” and then proposing to “build a higher level innovative city with vitality”, over the past two decades, Hangzhou has always put innovation at the forefront. As for AI, which is leading a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, Hangzhou knows that only by creating an open innovation environment can we achieve win-win cooperation.

It can be said that by gathering global innovation elements, Hangzhou is using a full-chain system layout to continue to release the effectiveness of innovation sources and achieve its own "acceleration" on the AI ​​track. (over)