EYESHENZHEN  /   Business  /   Industry News

Sets of regulations take effect

Writer: Zhang Yu  |  Editor: Zhang Chanwen  |  From: Shenzhen Daily  |  Updated: 2022-11-02

Several sets of regulations involving artificial intelligence (AI), the digital economy and foreign investment were officially put into effect in Shenzhen yesterday, which was also the fourth Shenzhen Entrepreneurs’ Day and the sixth Shenzhen Talent Day, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

The set of regulations promoting the AI industry, which came into effect yesterday, is the first special legislation of its kind in China and has made a series of innovative and exploratory provisions on AI technological breakthroughs, scenario applications and governance systems. The scale of China’s core AI industry has exceeded 400 billion yuan (US$54.76 billion), according to statistics. Shenzhen has over 1,300 AI-related enterprises, the second-largest number in the country.

Shenzhen’s legislation targets many new problems concerning security, privacy and fairness arising from the industry’s rapid development.

Testing, experiments and trial use are permitted in Shenzhen for low-risk AI products and services that have not yet been standardized by the national or local governments, but meet international advanced product standards or specifications, as per the regulations.

It is stipulated that the government must create a public data resource system for the AI industry and public data sharing guidelines for AI applications. Higher learning institutions, scientific research organizations and firms are encouraged and supported to build AI computing infrastructure and share computing resources to reduce enterprises’ development cost.

The regulations mandate the establishment of a specific AI governance institution and directs the city government to set up an AI ethics committee.

The set of regulations on promoting the digital economy, another important legislation in the city’s emerging sectors, also took effect yesterday. The regulations focus on the system design of the life cycle and services in the digital economy development.

It is proposed that the city’s digital infrastructure development plan must be formulated in response to major industrial development needs and application scenarios. For key and core digital technology projects involving public interests, the city government can carry them out through competitive selection or mandatory tasks.

Shenzhen should cooperate with other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) to build a big data center, promote the development of a data standardization system in the GBA and enhance the sharing of data resources, according to the regulations.

The set of regulations on foreign investment, which came into force yesterday, aims to further protect foreign investors’ rights and interests.

The regulations stipulate that it is prohibited to formulate restrictions or measures that deter the entry of foreign investment into sectors that are not included on the country’s negative list of foreign investment. Foreign and domestic investors shall both be given access under the same conditions to the sectors not on the negative list of foreign investment.