BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- China will step up efforts to empower traditional industries with artificial intelligence (AI) across all sectors and assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their digital transformation, an expert said.

A woman visits the permanent exhibition at the Zhongguancun Exhibition Center in Beijing, capital of China, March 25, 2026. (Photo: Xinhua)

Zhang Xiaoyan, deputy director of the China Center for Information Industry Development, made the remarks during the latest episode of China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency.

AI adoption in traditional manufacturing currently concentrates on front-end R&D and back-end services and marketing, while the core production stage has yet to see full-chain and systematic breakthroughs, according to Zhang.

She also noted that while some leading companies have entered the "AI 2.0" stage, a vast number of SMEs still lag behind, held back by constraints in funding, talent and technology.

Zhang called for strengthening AI technology supply by continuously improving the performance of general-purpose and industry-specific large models, and enhancing the availability of data and other key factors to lower the threshold for SMEs to adopt AI.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched an initiative in March to build high-quality industry datasets for AI empowerment, strengthen ecosystem development, and optimize the allocation of financial and talent resources.

By the end of 2025, the number of AI-related enterprises in China had exceeded 6,200, with the core AI industry surpassing 1.2 trillion yuan (about 174 billion U.S. dollars), official data showed.