Yunnan Digital Human Timeline

In October 2018, the Yunnan Provincial Government and Tencent jointly launched the "One Phone Travel Yunnan" (一部手机游云南) platform, operated by Yunnan Tengyun Information Industry Co., Ltd. (云南腾云信息产业有限公司), establishing the province's foundational smart tourism digital layer. Though the platform did not initially incorporate virtual human technology, it would later serve as the deployment substrate for AI digital human applications, accumulating over four billion cumulative user-visits by 2023.

In 2019, OCT Cultural Tourism Technology Group (华侨城文旅科技集团), a subsidiary of the listed company Yunnan Tourism (云南旅游, 002059.SZ), created the animated short-video IP "Hilarious Two Sisters" (爆笑两姐妹), employing motion capture and virtual production techniques. While this constituted an animated character IP rather than a conventional virtual digital human, it demonstrated early appetite for digital character production within Yunnan's state-adjacent cultural-tourism sector, and the IP eventually accumulated 31.83 million followers and 10.8 billion total plays.

During 2020 and 2021, several Kunming-based companies began establishing positions in the digital human field, though exact founding months remain unconfirmed for all of them. Kunming Huanjing Weilai (昆明幻境未来), also branded as MetaYN, raised 43 million RMB across two funding rounds and constructed a 700-square-meter optical motion capture facility in the city. Yunnan Yunman Intelligent (云南云漫智能) began developing an industry-focused language model branded as "Yunman Xiao Wukong" (云漫小悟空). Kunming Weixiang Tianxia (昆明微想天下), originally founded in 2008, pivoted toward AI digital humans around 2018 and co-established a Digital Human Joint Laboratory with Kunming University of Technology (昆明理工大学), ultimately developing capabilities supporting twelve Yunnan ethnic minority language voices across 106 voice types.

In April 2022, Yunnan Shengwei Technology (云南升维科技), operating from the Yunnan Blockchain Center digital park in Kunming, launched "Yun Shiyang" (云诗洋), presented as Yunnan's first homegrown virtual digital human with a fully self-controlled research and development chain spanning hardware, motion capture, modeling, and application development. The company announced deployment plans covering agricultural product livestreaming, music performance, and event hosting. The following month, on China Tourism Day in May 2022, the Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism (云南省文化和旅游厅) launched "Caiyun" (彩云) as Yunnan's first official virtual digital human and designated her "Digital Cultural Tourism Promotion Officer." Combining computer graphics, motion capture, voice synthesis, and AI, Caiyun was placed on the department's official Douyin account to promote Yunnan's tourism destinations and cultural products, marking the province's formal entry into government-led virtual human deployment.

In June 2022, three virtual digital influencers — Li Weike (李未可), developed by Hangzhou Li Weike Technology (杭州李未可科技) with ByteDance investment, along with Yi Shiqi (伊拾七) and pcyy — partnered with the Dali Prefecture Government (大理州政府) to produce the "Dali Metaverse City Film." The influencers themselves were not Yunnan-based, but the campaign was conceived as a tourism promotion initiative for Dali, and the related hashtag reached the top position on Douyin's local trending list on its release day, with the broader campaign hashtag accumulating 4.45 billion plays. This was cited at the time as China's first government-backed virtual digital human tourism collaboration. In July 2022, Caiyun appeared at the 2022 China International Tourism Trade Fair (中国国际旅游交易会) in Kunming, serving in a live demonstration as a virtual cultural tourism ambassador.

In November 2022, the 24th China Virtual Reality Conference, ChinaVR 2022, was held in Kunming across three days, bringing together leading virtual reality and augmented reality researchers and industry practitioners, with sessions that included digital human technologies. In December 2022, Yunnan's first metaverse industrial park — the Kunming Metaverse Service Trade Virtual Industrial Park — was formally established within the China (Yunnan) Free Trade Zone Kunming Section. Operated jointly by Yunnan FTZ Yifei Incubator Management Co. (云南自由贸易试验区翼飞孵化器管理有限公司) and Kunming Service Trade Association (昆明市服贸协会), the three-year project spanning 2022 through 2024 was planned at a total investment of 26 million RMB, with five virtual service trade bases and ten virtual application scenarios including Belt and Road cross-border tourism and China-Laos cross-border services.

In January 2023, Yunnan Broadcasting and Television Station (云南广播电视台) launched "Xiao Caiyun" (小彩云) as Yunnan's first virtual anchor on its "Qicai Yunduan" (七彩云端) platform. The character's image was selected from approximately 300 public submissions gathered over a four-month solicitation period, and Xiao Caiyun went on to host the news program "Caiyun Broadcast" (《彩云播报》), which accumulated over 16 million reads, and to produce a "Xiao Caiyun's 24 Solar Terms" video series. The virtual anchor was subsequently recognized by the National Radio and Television Administration as a "new era, new brand" media fusion brand.

In June 2023, Yunnan's first metaverse immersive experience scenic area launched at the 4A-rated Butterfly Spring (蝴蝶泉) scenic area in Dali. The project was developed by Dali Prefecture Tourism Group (大理州旅游集团) in collaboration with Ctrip (携程) and the augmented reality technology company Liang Fengtai (亮风台), incorporating Bai ethnic minority cultural IP, augmented reality, image measurement, and three-dimensional reconstruction technologies within an immersive narrative framework based on the traditional love story of Wengu and Xialang (雯姑霞郎). In August 2023, Kunming's Panlong District launched the Cloud Digital Empowerment Industrial Park (云上数字赋能产业园), which incorporated within its facilities a Digital Human Image Experience Center (数字人形象体验中心), an AIGC Art Gallery, and an XR Immersive Experience Center. Panlong District at that point hosted 9,706 digital economy enterprises generating annual revenue exceeding 10.26 billion yuan.

In November 2023, MoFa (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. (魔珐（上海）信息科技有限公司) and Yunnan Tengyun signed a strategic partnership to co-build what was announced as China's first national-level AI virtual human cultural tourism demonstration project. Three MoFa products were deployed as part of the agreement: "MoFa YouYan" (魔珐有言) for three-dimensional virtual human video generation and tour guide training content; "MoFa YouGuang" (魔珐有光) for three-dimensional virtual human e-commerce livestreaming promoting Yunnan products; and "MoFa YouLing" (魔珐有灵) for three-dimensional virtual human scenic spot navigation and personalized travel planning. The partnership was announced at the 2023 China International Tourism Trade Fair in Kunming, and the products were deployed across Yunnan's scenic areas. At the same trade fair, Yunnan Tengyun separately showcased "Xiao Xiang Yun Bao" (小象云宝, or "Little Elephant Cloud Treasure"), an AI digital human powered by large language models for the "Travel Yunnan" (游云南) platform, demonstrated planning a three-day Yuanyang travel itinerary — including transportation, accommodation, and dining recommendations — for visitors attending the fair.

In March 2024, the 2024 China Internet Media Forum (2024中国网络媒体论坛) was held in Kunming across two days at the end of the month, with digital human technology occupying a prominent role in the program. Silicon-based Intelligence (硅基智能), a Nanjing-based company, presented a digital human of the historical figure Wen Yiduo (闻一多) — the renowned poet and scholar who taught at Southwest Associated University in Kunming during the Second World War — in a cross-time dialogue format with contemporary university students, and donated the digital human to the Southwest Associated University Museum (西南联大博物馆), with museum director Li Hongying (李红英) accepting on behalf of the institution. At the same forum, Tencent Music's Tianqin Lab showcased a digital human named "Xiao Qin" (小琴) performing alongside Yunnan's Manhu Band (蛮虎乐队), and People's Daily Online's digital human "Baize" (白泽) was also exhibited.

In August 2024, Yunnan Broadcasting and Television Station and Tencent Cloud (腾讯云) formally established a New Technology Experiment Center, including an "AI and Visual Presentation Lab" focused on further developing the Xiao Caiyun virtual anchor IP through AIGC and large model technologies, with plans to integrate Tencent's Hunyuan AI tools into the workflow. In September 2024, BlueOcean Creative Cloud (蓝海创意云) and the Yunnan Meteorological Bureau (云南省气象局) launched the AI digital weather host "Wen Fei" (文斐), described as one of China's first AI digital hosts for weather broadcasting and featuring a one-to-one replication of a real meteorological presenter's appearance, expressions, and voice. Also in September 2024, Dali Prefecture's first city-level official virtual digital human, "Dali Xiaojinhua" (大理小金花), was unveiled at the opening ceremony of the 2024 "Colorful China" Dali National Ethnic Film Week. The character wears traditional Bai ethnic costume and serves as a Dali tourism and lifestyle ambassador; she was developed by Digital Dali Construction and Operation Co. (数字大理建设运营有限公司) with technical support from Shiyou Technology (世优科技), and her name references the classic 1959 ethnic film "Five Golden Flowers" (《五朵金花》).

In January 2025, the Kunming AI Computing Center (昆明人工智能算力中心) was officially completed at the Yunnan Digital Economy Development Zone. Built by Yunnan Yunshang Cloud Big Data (云南云上云大数据产业发展有限公司) in partnership with Huawei, the facility spans approximately 10,000 square meters and carries 8,192 petaFLOPS FP16 capacity, with partnerships extending to more than twenty universities and research institutions and explicit support for AI digital human development among its declared applications.

In February 2025, SenseTime (商汤科技) won the bid for the Kunming AI Empowerment Center Construction and Operation Integration Project (昆明人工智能赋能中心建设运营一体化项目), with a contract value exceeding 200 million RMB. Described as Yunnan Province's first AI empowerment center, the project spans governance, healthcare, education, community services, urban management, and water services, with DeepSeek and other large models to be privately deployed. Also in February 2025, China Unicom Yunnan (中国联通云南) used AI technology to create a digital human of the Naxi ethnic musician Dapo Maji (达坡玛吉), a National First-Class Performer affiliated with the Yunnan Federation of Literary and Art Circles. The AI digital human performed alongside the real Maji as part of "Intangible Heritage Celebrates Spring Festival" (非遗贺新春) activities co-organized with the Yunnan Culture and Tourism Department and Baidu Encyclopedia.

In March 2025, at the Yunnan Province "3·15" Financial Consumer Protection Education Campaign in Kunming, six AI digital human personas for financial consumer protection education were unveiled: Grandpa Jin Weimin (金为民), Grandma Xiao Huimin (肖惠敏), Father Jin Shouyi (金守益), Mother Yun Zhinan (云之楠), Brother Jin Weixin (金维信), and Sister Jin Rongrong (金融融). The six characters were designed to deliver financial literacy content through short videos and livestreaming using AI and big data technology.

In May 2025, the Kunming Public Security Bureau (昆明市公安局) launched "Chunxiao" (春晓), described as Southwest China's first AI police digital assistant, integrating dialect interaction, cultural elements, and smart policing functions. Built on DeepSeek large model technology, Chunxiao supports Mandarin, Kunming dialect, and English trilingual interaction and handles seven categories and 180 high-frequency policing inquiries with a reported accuracy rate exceeding 95 percent. The name derives from a Kunming dialect term meaning "knows everything" combined with a reference to a classical Tang Dynasty poem. Also in May 2025, the 2025 Yunnan AI Industry Investment Conference (2025云南人工智能产业杭州招商恳谈会) was held in Hangzhou, attracting over 150 participants from Yangtze River Delta AI enterprises; MoFa presented three-dimensional digital human technology at the event, and eight AI enterprises signed cooperation agreements with Yunnan entities. The conference was led by Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department Director Gao Jun (高俊) and functioned as an outward investment promotion initiative rather than an in-province event.

In June 2025, the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (西双版纳傣族自治州) published its "Digital Xishuangbanna Development Plan (2025–2035)" (数字西双版纳发展规划), explicitly calling for tourism digital humans to provide route planning, information inquiry, and tour guidance services, and for the construction of a Xishuangbanna Tourism Metaverse grounded in Dai ethnic culture and tropical tourism elements. The plan targets 85 percent of 3A-level and above scenic spots launching digital cultural tourism projects, with 2027 milestones including five or more digital twin and AI model demonstration scenarios and two or more digital cultural IP initiatives, within a prefecture that by that point reported 4,961 5G base stations and 66.82 percent 5G user penetration.

In December 2025, the Yunnan Provincial Government Office (云南省人民政府办公厅) published the "Yunnan Province Comprehensive Implementation of 'AI+' Action Plan" (云南省全面实施"人工智能+"行动计划), covering six major domains and eighteen sub-fields. The plan explicitly promotes deep integration of artificial intelligence with broadcasting, film, publishing, ethnic crafts, intangible heritage, performing arts, cultural creativity, and consumption sectors including virtual reality, smart shopping, and digital cultural tourism. Its 2027 targets include thirty or more typical application scenarios, ten or more AI innovation platforms, and five or more industry vertical models, with the province's "green electricity plus computing power" development model — drawing on Yunnan's substantial hydropower resources — positioned as a structural advantage for sustaining the digital human and AI infrastructure built up across the preceding three years.

[Mar 2026]