A leading national political adviser to the People’s Republic of China (PBoC) has called for greater focus on artificial intelligence (AI) agents to drive further AI industrial growth, as well as enhanced AI-driven defenses to safeguard enterprises amid rising cyber threats, including those from other AI systems.
Zhou Hongyi, founder of Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360 and a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference—the meeting of the state’s top political advisory body—outlined what he called a “six forces model” for China’s AI industry, according to a report from local outlet China Daily.
Speaking at this year’s “two sessions”—the yearly meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the political advisory body, which serve five-year terms and convene each March—Zhou said electricity, computing power, intelligence, talent, security and productivity must all work together to lay a solid foundation for the application of AI across more sectors.
Specifically, he also stressed the importance of AI agents, saying, “It is the AI agents that consume inference computing power that can transform general model capabilities into specialized intelligence.”
For this reason, he urged a focus on inference computing, intelligent agent platforms, and AI-powered security solutions.
“Only by transforming large models into AI agents, and into digital experts and digital interns, can it be integrated with the business of enterprises,” Zhou said.
The political advisor’s call comes at a boom time for AI development in China. Based on recent data from Stanford University’s Global AI Vibrancy Tool, which aggregates dozens of indicators of national AI performance, including research output, investment, talent attraction, and governance frameworks, China is second in the world in AI competitiveness, after only the United States.
It is the political, cultural, and technological rivalry with this latter powerhouse that has almost certainly spurred Chinese lawmakers to intensify their AI efforts over recent months and years.
In this regard, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Lecheng, who also spoke at the meeting of the “two sessions,” noted how AI has become a powerful driver of high-quality economic development, and that more than 30% of China’s large-scale industrial enterprises had already adopted AI technologies by the end of last year.
“You can see that unmanned production is such that human-machine collaboration is becoming a common scene in workshops and factories, and covers areas such as improving designs, manufacturing, efficiency improvement, quality inspection and other aspects,” Li said, as reported by RTHK News.
However, Zhou, who is also the founder and CEO of an internet security firm, warned that the security landscape is facing multiple AI-related security challenges, and that this is another area in which China should capitalize on its substantial investment in AI technology.
“This year I would like to first focus on ‘AI plus’ security, which means we must use AI’s abilities to solve traditional security issues,” Zhou said, as reported by Hong Kong outlet Bastille Post on Thursday. “For example, we can simulate an attack to an enterprise’s network, identifying its vulnerabilities and then fix them.”
He suggested that AI agents would be a key factor for the ‘AI plus’ security to be implemented into various industries, “because large models have their own limits.”
For example, he outlined how traditional security systems lack intelligent capabilities and highlighted the rise of “hacker agents,” which have transformed cyber warfare and introduced new risks.
Zhou reportedly said the security industry urgently needs to transform by accelerating the use of AI to govern AI.
Therefore, he recommended supporting enterprises with both security and AI capabilities to develop a range of security agent products for vulnerability handling and attack traceability analysis.
These, Zhou said, should be deployed in key areas such as critical information infrastructure and industrial internet to promote scenario-based applications.
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Source: https://coingeek.com/china-political-adviser-calls-for-more-focus-on-ai-security/
