China’s public sector accelerates AI adoption in 2024 as Zhipu and iFlyTek emerge as winners

The numbers offer a glimpse into the growing adoption of AI in China, who is gaining the most traction in this space, and the industries in which these technologies are being applied.

Operators in energy, telecoms, finance and scientific research are the most eager to tap into the potential of LLMs, with these industries seeing 19, 14, 12 and 10 deals, respectively.

A district environmental protection agency in Beijing bought bespoke LLMs to help it predict flood seasons. The Nuclear Power Institute of China and China Merchants Securities are counting on LLMs developed by Beijing-based start-up Zhipu AI to help organise knowledge from materials accumulated over years of operations for more convenient staff use, according to contracts reviewed by the Post.

Chinese energy powerhouses are also looking to use LLMs to find deficiencies across a variety of equipment used in power grids and for oil exploration.

Baidu and Huawei followed with five and three successful bids, respectively.

From month to month, there was a significant pickup in the pace of LLM contract bidding in the second quarter. January, February and March saw nine, five and nine contracts with successful bids, respectively. In April, that number jumped to 20 and then 24 in May. There have been 14 in June.

Out of the 81 contracts with successful bids this year, the most lucrative came from PipeChina, officially known as China Oil & Gas Piping Network Corporation, which is paying 152.6 million yuan (US$21 million) for LLM-related tech from Taifu Industry, a subsidiary of state-affiliated Shandong Energy Group.

Taifu will develop both software and hardware for training and developing LLMs for PipeChina, which oversees the management of the nation’s extensive oil and gas pipelines. The contract did not specify how those LLMs will be used.

The total value of all 81 contracts is 433 million yuan, with an average of 5.3 million yuan per contract.