The integration level of artificial intelligence technology and industry is getting deeper, the ongoing World Artificial Intelligence Conference has been told.

And the value of cognitive intelligence has won preliminary approval from industries, a report on cognitive intelligence technologies and application research revealed.

With the acceleration of digitalization globally, the development of cognitive intelligence has been projected on fast track, according to the report.

Jointly released at the Cognition of the World, Innovation for Future Forum during the WAIC by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and UniDT (Shanghai) Co Ltd, a leading AI and data technology company, it is the first of its kind in China.

The application boom of foundation models will inject new momentum into cognitive intelligence and will further expand the application potentials and value boundary of cognitive intelligence, the report noted.

"We have found that new application scenarios of cognitive intelligence represented by foundation models in areas such as financing and manufacturing has been emerging with the continuous proceeding of foundation models and AI," said Cao Feng, director of Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of CAICT.

The domestic market scale of cognitive intelligence surpassed 40 billion yuan (US$5.54 billion) last year based on statistics by authorities, and it is estimated to grow 50 percent in the following couple of years, according to Yang Xiaodong, algorithm researcher of UniDT (Shanghai) Co Ltd.

The development of cognitive intelligence in the domestic market is expected to be even faster than the global level, he added.

Cognitive intelligence technology can detect equipment flaws in industrial fields, which will significantly lift the accuracy rate and help solve problems compared with traditional algorithm methods, experts said.

At the same time, a cognitive intelligence engine platform has been launched, covering areas from functional arithmetic platforms to AI platform tools and empowering industry application scenes.

Cognitive intelligence technologies are now applied in intelligent manufacturing, digital government affairs, digital culture and tourism, as well as retail financial services, showing large potential, experts said.

"Shanghai will pool global innovation resources with better services to attract talented personnel in foundation models fields from home and abroad," said Wang Zhijia, director of the artificial intelligence development of Shanghai Economic and Information Commission.

"The city will promote the innovative development of foundation models and make data advantage resulting from urban digital transformation to the full play."