BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — A small drone flew low over a sugarcane subject in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, gathering crop information that synthetic intelligence (AI) can analyze to determine potential illness dangers.
Wang Xiaoding, a researcher on the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, mentioned AI may help detect indicators of sugarcane ailments earlier than apparent signs seem, whereas smartphone-based instruments present farmers with crop administration recommendation.
AI can also be getting used to determine genes linked to greater yields and sugar content material, and to enhance harvesting effectivity.
“Breeding a new sugarcane variety used to take eight to 10 years. AI can substantially shorten this timeline,” Wang famous.
Similar purposes are rising throughout different tropical crops, with AI serving to analyze genetic information for banana breeding, detect pests and ailments in cassava, and monitor oil palm plantations and rubber forests.
These developments mirror China’s broader push towards smarter agriculture. Last yr, China had greater than 300,000 agricultural drones in use, the biggest fleet on this planet, with an annual working space exceeding 460 million mu (about 30.7 million hectares).
China has issued a plan for agricultural and rural modernization for the 2026-2030 interval, aiming to boost the contribution fee of sci-tech progress to agricultural improvement to 67 p.c by 2030. The plan additionally requires broader AI purposes in agriculture and breakthroughs in creating new high quality productive forces within the sector.
For tropical agriculture, the potential extends past China, significantly to Southeast Asia, the place international locations develop lots of the similar crops and face comparable pest, illness and extreme-weather challenges.
“We are exploring these technologies not only to address challenges in tropical crop breeding and cultivation in China, but also to strengthen cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia,” mentioned Hao Chaoyun, director of the Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology on the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences.
“We hope to share technological advances and farming experience to improve the quality and efficiency of tropical agriculture worldwide,” Hao added.
Such cooperation is already taking form.
In Cambodia’s Kampong Chhnang Province, an AI-powered platform developed by JJR Science & Technology Group Co., Ltd. helps handle sprinkler and drip irrigation programs in vegetable greenhouses. In Pakse, Laos, greater than 4,000 mu of banana plantations are managed with larger precision utilizing the corporate’s expertise.
Weather forecasting is one other space of cooperation. China’s MAZU early-warning system combines meteorological satellite tv for pc information and AI forecasting fashions to help catastrophe warnings, with a number of merchandise already offering companies to ASEAN international locations.
Dai Kan, deputy director of China’s National Meteorological Center, mentioned China and ASEAN international locations are each situated in monsoon local weather zones. He expressed hope that the 2 sides would strengthen information sharing and collectively develop sustained early-warning companies tailor-made to key regional catastrophe dangers and agricultural manufacturing wants.
Still, increasing such applied sciences throughout the area requires greater than gear and software program. Reliable information, native experience and reasonably priced entry to digital instruments stay important, significantly for smaller farms.
The alternatives and challenges prolong past agriculture.
A 2025 report by the United Nations Development Programme says Asia and the Pacific area, house to over 55 p.c of the world’s inhabitants, is on the heart of the AI transition. The area hosts greater than half of world AI customers and is quickly increasing its innovation footprint.
AI might elevate annual GDP progress within the area by round 2 share factors and lift productiveness by as much as 5 p.c in sectors like well being and finance. ASEAN economies, in the meantime, might see almost 1 trillion U.S. {dollars} in extra GDP over the following decade, the report mentioned.
Against this backdrop, specialists on the International Forum on China Reform, just lately held in Haikou, capital of Hainan, known as for nearer regional cooperation to make sure that extra economies can profit from AI.
Peng Sen, former president of the China Society of Economic Reform, mentioned AI is rising as a brand new driver of progress and productiveness, providing Asia-Pacific economies alternatives to leverage their complementary strengths and reshape regional worth chains.
Peng additionally confused the necessity to deal with the digital divide, fragmented guidelines and limitations to cross-border flows of knowledge, AI fashions and expertise.
A background report ready for the discussion board highlighted complementary strengths amongst members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). These embody China’s massive AI utility market, Japan and the Republic of Korea’s experience in semiconductor supplies and chip manufacturing, and ASEAN economies’ rising capabilities in information annotation, service outsourcing and sensible metropolis purposes.
To flip these strengths into sensible cooperation, the report proposed establishing an AI industrial cooperation working group beneath the RCEP framework and creating demonstration initiatives in agricultural AI, sensible manufacturing, well being care and different fields, drawing on current platforms.
For agriculture, such cooperation might assist make AI applied sciences extra accessible to farmers via demonstration initiatives and instruments tailored to native wants.
Ye Tun Win, Myanmar’s deputy minister of agriculture, livestock and irrigation, expressed hope for expanded cooperation with China in AI, infrastructure and logistics to develop extra environment friendly agricultural worth chains.