An industry alliance, cooperation deals and a transformation fund were announced on the first day of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2023, indicating AI's deeper integration with an increasing number of industries. The WAIC kicked off in Shanghai on Thursday.

A Shanghai AI computing capability alliance, launched by China Unicom and it partners, including chip, AI algorithm and dot-com firms, made its debut at the WAIC. The first batch members include Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, SenseTime, Shanghai Unicom and Tencent. Meanwhile, Shanghai Unicom also signed cooperation agreements with JD.com and MetaX.

A new digital transformation fund, valued at 10 billion yuan (US$1.38 billion), was founded at the conference, with China Mobile as a major investor.

A smart finance open-ecosystem alliance was founded during the WAIC intelligence finance forum, organized by Shanghai-based Huifu. Accounting experts, software vendors and banking executives attended the afternoon forum.

ChatGPT and other generative AI functions have brought big changes and opportunities in the accounting and finance sector, Yang Shanlin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the forum.

Shanghai-based NeuroXess announced a group of brain computer interface, or BCI, results and products at a brain science forum as part of the WAIC. The releases, covering devices, surgery robots and China's BCI ecosystem blueprint, are expected to boost the development of BCI, a booming new category science fueled by Neuralink, which is backed up Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk.

The Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and NeuroXess signed a cooperation deal on science education to popularize science and technology resources in the future. The company, along with partners, including Huashan Hospital, also launched an ethical white paper for BCI at the WAIC.