Shandong is set to host an artificial intelligence industry conference from Oct 14 to 16, with a focus on speeding up AI-driven upgrades to the industrial sector, according to a news conference held on Tuesday in Jinan, the provincial capital.

China's AI innovation momentum continues to strengthen, with the core industry scale surpassing 1.2 trillion yuan ($178.7 billion) in 2025 and the number of AI enterprises exceeding 6,200, said He Baohong, chief engineer with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, at the news conference.

According to He, Shandong is home to a complete industrial system and varied manufacturing scenarios. Jinan, specifically, has gathered national-level innovation platform resources, making the city a fertile ground for the commercialization of AI.

The conference will showcase AI development achievements in independent innovation, application-driven development, ecosystem coordination, open win-win cooperation, and security and controllability.

Wang Jianfu, an official at the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province, said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), Shandong plans to become a national leader for AI industry development and demonstration applications by strengthening innovation capacity, cultivating a matrix of intelligent products, deepening scenario-based demonstration, and building a collaborative development ecosystem.

By 2030, 70 percent of large manufacturers in Shandong will be using AI, Wang said.

Ren Guangfeng, vice mayor of Jinan, said the city intends to fully implement China's AI Plus initiative by enabling technology supply and industrial application to empower each other.

Parts of the plans include securing a steady supply of innovation and advancing industrial intelligence by expanding real-world application scenarios. To do so, the province intends to promote AI use across the entire manufacturing chain.