From October 14 to 16, the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Industry Conference was held in Jinan, Shandong, gathering over 300 leading domestic and foreign AI enterprises and innovation bodies. Themed "Accelerating AI Empowerment of New Industrialization," the conference made "production line," "scenario" and "deployment" the high-frequency keywords across exhibition halls and forums.
On opening day, seven vertical large models — Hairuo, Tianzhi, Xingji, Yunding, Xinggang, Shangzhi and Qizhi Kongming — debuted together as the "Qilu Seven Stars," building an intelligent matrix for advantageous industries and marking the region's shift from single-model攻关 to cluster layout. Shandong, with all 41 industrial categories and vast real-world operational data, provides fertile ground for vertical models. "General models compete on who is smarter; vertical models compete on who knows the industry better," said Zhou Jun, a professor at Shandong University.
Each model addresses real problems. The COSMO_plat Tianzhi model builds an "industrial brain" to solve pain points like "data but no decisions"; the Xinggang model compresses Qingdao port's berth planning to one or two minutes with over 90% adoption; the Yunding mining model covers coal mining, driving and electromechanics with 280-plus scenarios. Rokae Robotics showcased wheeled humanoids and force-controlled arms extending from industry to consumer use.
During the conference, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released "high-value scenarios for AI empowering new industrialization," covering 20 segments including petrochemicals, steel, autos and consumer electronics with over 1,000 scenarios. The National AI Application Pilot Base (industrial software) was launched in Jinan, linking Taiyuan coal and Qingdao port bases to bridge the "last mile" from technology to production lines.
Source: People's Daily
