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In May 2020, Xinjiang Daily Press (新疆日报报业集团) launched Xinjiang's first AI virtual anchor on its new media platform during the national "Two Sessions" political meeting period. The digital anchor was capable of automatically synthesizing audio, facial expressions, and lip movements from text input, presenting news coverage in a format visually indistinguishable from a human broadcaster. For the duration of the Two Sessions, the AI anchor appeared daily in the live broadcast room to discuss topics of concern to Xinjiang's multiethnic population, marking the region's first public deployment of a digital human for news delivery. That initial experiment stood essentially alone for nearly two years, as Xinjiang's digital economy infrastructure remained in an early stage of development—the region's digital economy revenue reached only ¥159 billion in 2022—and no additional digital human deployments of note occurred in the region during that interval.
In May 2022, Hami City Museum (哈密市文博院（博物馆）) in Hami, Xinjiang, deployed what became the region's earliest known museum digital character system. The project, called the "Hami Ancient Civilization MR Holographic Journey" (哈密古代文明MR全息之旅), installed 19 holographic interactive points throughout the Ancient Civilization Exhibition Hall, combining virtual narration, holographic performance, and interactive smart guide services in a virtual-real fusion format. Two intelligent guide characters named "Sanbao" (三宝) and "Mibao" (蜜宝) engaged verbally with visitors about collections and archaeological sites, representing the region's earliest known instance of embodied digital character interaction deployed for cultural heritage purposes inside Xinjiang.
Xinjiang's digital human landscape entered a more active phase in May 2023, when WestArea (西部空间), a digital collectibles platform, signed a strategic agreement with Xinjiang Cultural Tourism Digital Economy Development Co., Ltd. (新疆文旅数字经济发展有限公司), a subsidiary of Xinjiang Cultural Tourism Investment Group, on May 5, 2023. The partnership created a "digital collectibles plus cultural tourism" ecosystem roadmap envisioning the conversion of assets at major scenic areas across Xinjiang—including Nalati, Kanas, Grape Valley, and Jiangbulake—into unique digital collectible products, with a full integration model linking digital collectibles, metaverse environments, tourism activities, and offline consumption. This was one of Xinjiang's first formal metaverse-adjacent tourism initiatives and established a framework for subsequent cultural tourism digital projects.
In July 2023, Xinjiang's first native ultra-realistic virtual digital human made her public debut. The character, named Kunlun Xi (昆仑羲), was designed with a backstory grounded in Kunlun cultural mythology, presenting her as a time-traveling embodiment of the Kunlun goddess. She first appeared in a short video released at the time of Xinjiang's inaugural local music festival, the Jiangkuo Music Festival (疆菓音乐节), in Urumqi. Kunlun Xi remained the region's only native virtual character IP through the entire period covered by this narrative, with no other Xinjiang-origin virtual influencers or VTubers emerging in the years that followed.
In August 2023, the first Xinjiang Asia-Europe Digital Economy Expo, organized by Urumqi City Investment Group Xinjiang International Convention & Exhibition Co. (乌鲁木齐城投集团新疆国际会展有限公司), was held at the Xinjiang International Convention Center in Urumqi from August 28 to 30. Themed "Digital-Physical Integration, Smart Xinjiang" (数实融合·智慧新疆), the inaugural expo showcased digital industrialization and industrial digitalization along the Silk Road through digital government, digital industry, digital life, and digital rural pavilions, and it represented the region's first dedicated digital economy trade show. While not exclusively focused on digital humans, the event established the institutional ecosystem that would underpin accelerating digital human adoption across the region in the years that followed.
The year 2024 brought an unprecedented wave of digital human activity across multiple sectors in Xinjiang. On January 1, 2024, Aksu Regional Media Center / Aksu TV Station (阿克苏地区融媒体中心 / 阿克苏电视台) in Aksu adopted an AI anchor named "Xiao Rui" (小芮) for routine daily broadcasting of its program "Aksu News" (《阿克苏新闻》). Unlike many AI anchor deployments elsewhere in China that were reserved for special occasions, Xiao Rui handled local leadership activities and regional affairs reporting every day, making Aksu one of China's earliest local TV stations to integrate a digital human anchor into everyday editorial workflows at the prefectural level. Multiple national media outlets—including Xinhua, China News Service, and Sina Finance—subsequently cited the Aksu deployment as a pioneering case, noting that it predated widely discussed AI anchor initiatives at major city broadcasters by a full year.
In May 2024, China Telecom Xinjiang Livestreaming Industry Research Institute (新疆电信直播产业研究院), serving all of Xinjiang from Urumqi, publicly announced the launch of AI digital human products for e-commerce livestreaming at a forum held on May 15 and 16. Vice President Xu Sihua (许四化) disclosed that China Telecom headquarters had developed a large language model and AI computing platform and had released front-end livestreaming software including fully automated AI real-scene livestreaming suites and digital human tools designed to address the chronic shortage and high cost of qualified livestream anchors in Xinjiang. At the time of the announcement, the institute was collaborating with more than 140 enterprises across the region, with plans to leverage all 16 of Xinjiang's China Telecom branch companies to scale the digital human initiative. On May 15, 2024, a concurrent forum titled "Digital Intelligence Empowering E-commerce" (数智赋能电商) at Urumqi's High-tech Zone brought more than 200 enterprise representatives together with experts from Xinjiang University (新疆大学), China Telecom, Volcano Engine (火山引擎) of ByteDance, and Baidu Cloud (百度云). Following the forum, the High-tech Zone (Xinshi District) E-commerce Association (高新区（新市区）电商协会) and Xinjiang Xinhua Bookstore (新疆新华书店) announced specialized training sessions for AI digital humans and unmanned real-scene livestreaming, confirming that Baidu, ByteDance, and China Telecom were all actively offering digital human solutions specifically targeting Xinjiang's e-commerce market.
In June 2024, China Telecom Xinjiang Yili Branch (中国电信新疆伊犁分公司) partnered with Zhaosu County to begin building comprehensive smart tourism infrastructure in Zhaosu County (昭苏县), Ili Prefecture. The centerpiece of the project was a digital human narrator accessible through a WeChat mini-program, capable of providing explanations of all scenic spots and check-in points across the county. An AI intelligent question-and-answer system named "Zhaozhao" (昭昭) was built into the infrastructure, enabling interactive dialogue with tourists about local attractions. The project further included a big data analytics platform for tourism management, with the stated goal of positioning Zhaosu as a benchmark smart tourism destination both for Xinjiang and nationally; the system was reported to be nearing completion by December 2024. Also in June 2024, Urumqi Social Insurance Center (乌鲁木齐市社会保险中心), operating under Urumqi Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (乌鲁木齐市人力资源和社会保障局), launched a pilot deployment of digital employees (数字员工) for social insurance processing, making Urumqi the first city in all of Xinjiang to introduce the technology for this administrative purpose. Built on robotic process automation software combined with artificial intelligence, the system processed unemployment insurance benefit approvals at a rate of more than 300 cases per day per unit—roughly triple the output of a human worker—with an accuracy rate exceeding 99 percent and around-the-clock operation. In July 2024, leadership from the Xinjiang regional Social Insurance Center visited the Urumqi pilot to study expansion of the applications to insurance transfers, enrollment, and benefit calculations.
The 8th China-Eurasia Expo, held at the Xinjiang International Convention Center in Urumqi from June 26 to 30, 2024, saw all three major Chinese telecommunications operators—China Telecom, China Unicom (中国联通), and China Mobile (中国移动)—exhibit AI and digital human technologies at their respective booths. Demonstrations encompassed virtual experiment teaching, AI integrated with digital life and smart city concepts, AI-enabled government services, and digital agriculture technology. The expo also featured a previously established multilingual AI anchor from Guiyu Intelligent, which had been identified as one of Xinjiang's known digital human deployments prior to the period covered by the 19 new findings in the attached research.
In September 2024, Xinjiang Xinlv Mujiang Digital Culture Co., Ltd. (新疆新旅沐疆数字文化有限公司) was established as a joint venture between a subsidiary of Xinjiang Cultural Tourism Investment Group and Muxin Culture Media (沐心文化传媒), a subsidiary of iQiyi (爱奇艺). The new company was formed to develop and operate "Silk Road Adventure" (丝路奇遇记), a large-scale VR immersive theater occupying 400 square meters of multi-dimensional interactive space at the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi. The production features seven main digital characters and 22 supporting character models recreating six major historical scenes, including Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions, Princess Jieyou's grassland wedding, and Xuanzang's crossing of the Pamir plateau. Described as Xinjiang's first IP metaverse project (新疆IP元宇宙的首发项目), the joint venture represented the entry of a major national streaming platform into Xinjiang's cultural tourism digital space.
In December 2024, the launch event of the "Xinjiang Goods Go Nationwide" Livestream E-commerce Online Year-Goods Festival, organized jointly by the Xinjiang Commerce Department (新疆商务厅), Xinjiang E-commerce Association (新疆电商协会), Xinjiang Talent Group (新疆人才集团), and Wuyou Media (无忧传媒), featured a digital human host as master of ceremonies—a deployment described by organizers as adding a strong technological atmosphere to the provincial-level e-commerce promotional event. Signing ceremonies were held among the participating organizations at the launch, marking what was characterized as official government adoption of digital human technology for a flagship Xinjiang commerce event.
The pace of deployment accelerated further in early 2025. In February 2025, the Changji Smart Computing Center (昌吉智算中心), overseen by Changji Prefecture Digital Development Bureau (昌吉州数字化发展局), announced partnerships with Parallel Technology, QingCloud, Xiangyan Technology, and Zhipu AI as part of its DeepSeek AI platform integration. Digital humans were listed among the target application areas for the regional AI computing infrastructure, alongside video generation, pharmaceutical research and development, autonomous driving, and robotics. Center director Chen Hongyu stated that the platform had already achieved more than 95 percent accuracy in smart government services, with digital human applications in the planning and deployment phase. Also in February 2025, the government of Shihezi City (石河子市) in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps deployed an AI government services assistant named "Shi Xiaobing" (石小兵, meaning "Shihezi Little Soldier"), developed in cooperation with the 8th Division Shihezi City Government Services and Big Data Bureau (八师石河子市政务服务和大数据局), the Digital Industry Economic Research Institute (师市数字产业经济研究院), and Xinjiang Zhitu Technology Co. (新疆智图科技公司). Shi Xiaobing features a distinctive avatar styled as a military reclamation warrior and was deployed on the city government website and the civic services application "Shi Shi Ban" (石时办). Powered by the DeepSeek R1 large language model integrated with a proprietary retrieval-augmented generation knowledge base, the system covers more than 1,000 government service items spanning vehicle registration, social security, and business licensing. Around the same period, China Telecom Xinjiang Company (中国电信新疆公司) and Hotan Digital Development Bureau (和田地区数字化发展局) jointly deployed an "AI Digital Human + Government Services" intelligent guide system in Hotan, also built on DeepSeek large language model technology. The system was designed to help citizens navigate government service halls efficiently, reducing unnecessary trips and directing them to the correct service points.
In March 2025, Bayingolin Prefecture's first county-level AI anchor, named "Ruoyu" (若语), officially launched at Ruoqiang County Media Center (若羌县融媒体中心) in Ruoqiang County (若羌县), Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. Ruoyu was built with advanced artificial intelligence and features a natural appearance and clear voice, with the ability to adjust broadcasting style to match different news types—adopting a formal register for political affairs and a warmer tone for livelihood stories. Center director Shu Shilong noted that the AI anchor had dramatically improved news timeliness and reduced the production cycle for the county-level broadcaster. Also in March 2025, Shufu County Government (疏附县人民政府) in Kashgar, in cooperation with China Telecom's "Digital Aid Xinjiang" (数字援疆) initiative and Kashgar Jiangguoguo Agricultural Technology Co. (喀什疆果果农业科技有限公司), established what was described as South Xinjiang's first county-level AI livestream training base. A follow-up and expansion of agricultural digital human training activity from the previous year, the inaugural session of the new base attracted more than 150 participants—including representatives from agricultural enterprises, e-commerce students from Kashgar Vocational and Technical College, and local entrepreneurs—and covered digital human livestream setup, Douyin platform algorithms, and a "digital human dual-track livestreaming mode" designed specifically for the promotion and sale of agricultural products.
In April 2025, the "Silk Road Adventure" VR immersive theater developed by Xinjiang Xinlv Mujiang Digital Culture Co., Ltd. at the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar entered its testing phase, bringing into active use the seven main digital characters and 22 supporting character models that had been developed since the joint venture's establishment seven months earlier. That same month, reports confirmed that a Xinjiang farmer operating the account @果农老李闯天下 had been using Baidu (百度)'s Huibboxing (慧播星) AI livestreaming platform to deploy a digital human clone that livestreamed around the clock from the dried fruit production area of Xinjiang. Using Baidu's "one-click real person clone" function, the farmer had created an AI replica capable of showcasing the full process of red dates from picking to sorting without requiring the human operator's continuous presence. Baidu's platform uses proprietary multimodal algorithms to generate ultra-realistic digital human clones from a single livestream recording session.
During 2025, 4UTech (Beijing) (世优（北京）科技有限公司), working through its Bota AI Digital Human (波塔AI数字人智能体) platform, deployed a 3D AI digital human at the entrance of Ili General's Mansion (伊犁将军府), a national key cultural heritage site in Huocheng County, Ili, Xinjiang. The character was modeled as the historical Qing-dynasty official "Ili General" (伊犁将军) Mingru (明瑞), dressed in a yellow riding jacket and Qing-era sword, and functioned as an interactive guide for visitors to the site. The installation also featured mixed-reality overlays on a physical sandtable of Huiyuan New City, animated historical paintings including the "Pacification of Ili Receiving Surrender" and the "Geden Oola Raid," and a visualization of the Qing-era Xinjiang political district map. The project was selected for inclusion in the China Digital Human Development Report (2025), compiled under the State Key Laboratory of Media Convergence and Communication (Communication University of China), representing a nationally recognized validation of Xinjiang's cultural heritage digital human applications.
In December 2025, the 224th Regiment First Middle School of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (新疆生产建设兵团第二二四团第一中学) deployed a digital human in a history classroom, where the character embodied a village cadre from the early reform-and-opening-up period to engage students in immersive dialogue about that era. The deployment was reported as one of the earliest confirmed uses of digital human technology in Xinjiang's formal education sector, extending the technology's reach from media broadcasting, tourism, e-commerce, and government services into the classroom.
Across the full span from May 2020 through February 2026, China Telecom emerged as the single most active deployer of digital human technology in Xinjiang, with at least five distinct initiatives: the Xinjiang Livestreaming Industry Research Institute serving more than 140 enterprise partners, the Zhaosu County smart tourism digital human, the Shufu County agricultural e-commerce training base, the Hotan government services system, and ongoing infrastructure support for broader digital human capacity across Xinjiang's branch network. Among national technology companies, Baidu entered the Xinjiang market through its Huibboxing agricultural livestreaming platform and through Baidu Cloud's participation in the Urumqi High-tech Zone digital human training forum. ByteDance's Volcano Engine participated in the same Urumqi training forum and hosted the Ili General's Mansion case study on its developer platform. iQiyi entered the Xinjiang cultural tourism digital space through the Xinjiang Xinlv Mujiang joint venture at the Grand Bazaar. The consistent theme across the entire trajectory was the use of digital humans to fill practical talent gaps—in news anchoring, livestream hosting, tour guiding, and government service delivery—in a vast, sparsely populated region where qualified human personnel remained scarce, positioning digital human technology not as novelty but as critical infrastructure for Xinjiang's digital economy.
[Feb 2026]
2025
January 10, 2025: Karamay Public Security Bureau (with Beijing Shiyin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.) – Unveiled Xinjiang’s first AI-driven digital police officer “Xiao Ke” during the Fifth Chinese People’s Police Day, introducing a 24-hour voice-interactive virtual police service using large language models, speech recognition, computer vision, and voice cloning to provide legal guidance, public enquiries, and internal police training functions.
2024
October 12, 2024: Changji City Media Center with Quanzhou Broadcasting & Television Station – Launched Xinjiang’s first AI Digital Human Studio and introduced the first batch of AI digital news anchors as part of the Fujian-Xinjiang media collaboration program, enabling AI-hosted television and public information broadcasting.
August 23, 2024: Hotan Kunlun Mountains Canyon Cultural Tourism Festival (Beijing E-Town / Shang Yicheng Group) – Debut of “Yi Qi”, an ultra-realistic 3D digital human serving as a virtual tourism recommendation officer, appearing on stage with human hosts to present tourism content and interact with audiences using lifelike expressions and gestures.
June 26–30, 2024: 8th China–Eurasia Expo (Ürümqi) – Xinjiang Guiyu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. – Demonstrated a multilingual AI digital human news anchor cloned from a real employee, continuously broadcasting expo updates in 27 languages using AI-generated video, voice cloning, and lip-sync technology.
March 25, 2024: China Telecom (Shufu County) at Kashgar Jianguoguo Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. – Conducted an AI digital human livestreaming training program for e-commerce with more than 150 local businesses, students, and entrepreneurs, establishing Xinjiang’s first AI livestreaming training base to support digital agriculture and rural online sales.
2023
July 13, 2023: Xinjiang Ting Guangtong Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (Ürümqi) – Unveiled “Kunlun Xi (昆仑羲)”, Xinjiang’s first ultra-realistic virtual digital human, modeled on Kunlun mythology and designed as a digital cultural ambassador and virtual idol for tourism, exhibitions, livestreaming, and e-commerce, representing Xinjiang’s formal entry into high-fidelity digital human production.
2020
May 23, 2020: Xinjiang Newspaper Media Group (Xinjiang Daily) – Debuted Xinjiang’s first AI virtual news anchor during China’s Two Sessions, using text-to-speech and AI video synthesis to deliver televised news with human-like lip-sync and facial expressions, marking the region’s first operational deployment of digital humans in media.