Inner Mongolia Digital Human Timeline

In July 2020, Inner Mongolia University's (内蒙古大学) National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Mongolian Intelligent Information Processing (蒙古文智能信息处理技术国家地方联合工程研究中心), working in partnership with Inner Mongolia Daily (内蒙古日报社) and Inner Mongolia Aoyun Information Technology Service Co., Ltd. (内蒙古奥云信息技术服务有限公司), announced what would become China's first Mongolian-language AI news anchor and the country's first AI synthetic anchor in any minority language. The system, known as the Aoyun AI Synthetic Anchor (奥云AI合成主播), was publicly deployed around September 2020 on the Inner Mongolia Daily's new media platform in Hohhot. It accepted Mongolian or Chinese text as input, performed automatic bilingual translation, and generated anchor video with bilingual subtitles, directly embedding synthetic media into Inner Mongolia's information infrastructure for the first time. The research effort behind this work was led by Professor Feilong (飞龙) of Inner Mongolia University's Computer Science College, whose team over subsequent years would publish more than 130 papers across IEEE, ACM TASLP, ICASSP, and COLING, secure nine authorized invention patents, and receive national recognition for their contributions to Mongolian intelligent information processing.

Also in 2020, Yili Group (伊利集团), the dairy corporation headquartered in Hohhot, launched its first digital human IP, "Xiaoyou" (小优), as a virtual character for its Yousuanru (优酸乳) yogurt sub-brand. Designed as a Gen-Z-oriented brand mascot with a distinctive pomelo hairstyle and fashionable styling, Xiaoyou appeared in CG animations, on product packaging, and as a livestream host alongside brand ambassador Chen Linong. Although these campaigns ran nationally, Yili's Hohhot headquarters made it the first Inner Mongolian enterprise to deploy a named digital human character, and the company went on to build what it described as a digital human family, adding characters named "Dali" (大利), "Xiaoyi" (小伊), "Yiyi" (伊伊), and "Xiaoqiao" (小巧) for various sub-brands in subsequent years.

On December 12, 2022, Mengniu Dairy Group (蒙牛集团) debuted its first virtual digital employee, "Naisi" (奶思), via a livestream on Kuaishou's Mengniu Milk Flagship Store account. Powered by Kuaishou StreamLake's (快手StreamLake) full-chain virtual digital human solution, Naisi was officially described as China's dairy industry's first virtual anchor, and her constructed backstory positioned her as Mongolian ethnicity, born August 18, 1999, from Horinger County (和林格尔) in Inner Mongolia, and fluent in Mongolian, Mandarin, and English. The debut attracted approximately three million viewers and produced an 800 percent rise in engagement metrics, establishing Naisi as a significant virtual brand presence for a company that, while nationally operating, maintained its headquarters in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Ministry of Education approval of Inner Mongolia Normal University's (内蒙古师范大学) Digital Humanities undergraduate program also came in 2022, housed within the institution's School of Mongolian Studies (蒙古学学院), making it the first university in China to establish such a degree, though the public announcement was made the following year.

In January 2023, Hohhot underwent a structural media reorganization that would later have relevance for the city's AI media developments. On January 7, the Hohhot Integrated Media Center (呼和浩特市融媒体中心) was formally inaugurated, merging Hohhot Daily, Hohhot Radio and TV Station, and Hohhot News Network into a single unified platform branded "Qingcheng Rongmei" (青橙融媒), and the city entered the roster of sixty national pilot cities for media fusion reform. This institutional consolidation created the organizational basis that would later support Hohhot's AI-driven media deployments in 2025.

In March 2023, Naisi appeared alongside Mengniu Group CEO Lu Minfang (卢敏放) in a virtual-real co-streaming event on Kuaishou. Described at the time as the first occasion in the dairy industry when a virtual anchor shared a live broadcast with a corporate president, the session used Kuaishou StreamLake's digital human technology combined with XR environments to present discussions of organic products and Tetra Pak packaging, extending Naisi's role from brand mascot to a participant in executive-level communications.

In April 2023, Inner Mongolia Normal University publicly announced the launch of its Ministry-approved Digital Humanities undergraduate program. The program was positioned as a vehicle for applying digital technology to Mongolian cultural heritage, and it represented the first dedicated undergraduate pathway of its kind at any Chinese university.

On May 4, 2023, Yili debuted "Jinwan" (金婰), a hyper-realistic digital human, as the virtual spokesperson for its SATINE (金典) premium milk sub-brand, describing her as China's dairy industry's first hyper-realistic digital human spokesperson. She appeared via a Douyin livestream that combined real-time motion capture with 3D scene rendering and accumulated over one million likes within eight minutes. In June 2023, Jinwan represented Yili at the Global Dairy Congress in London — an event outside Inner Mongolia — and subsequently appeared at the Yili Health Valley Opening Carnival in Hohhot, marking her first deployment within the region.

In August 2023, the Hohhot Human Resources Service Industrial Park (呼和浩特人力资源服务产业园) completed a 511 square-meter live job-streaming base featuring ten professional rooms, one of which was dedicated specifically to AI digital human livestreaming. The facility was recognized as Inner Mongolia's first public human resources infrastructure built around digital transformation in employment services, and it established a model that would be replicated and expanded across the region in subsequent years.

In February 2024, Huawei Cloud's (华为云) MetaStudio platform was engaged to create interactive digital versions of the Mongolian-themed mascots for the 14th National Winter Games (第十四届全国冬季运动会) held in Hulunbuir. The mascots, "Anda" (安达) and "Sainu" (赛努), were rendered using 276-point facial feature recognition and cloud rendering technology, and the Games opened on February 17, 2024. The event became the first National Winter Games to deploy digital human technology at its venues, and Huawei Cloud received the "Winter Games Contributing Unit" honor in recognition of its contribution.

In March 2024, Inner Mongolia Broadcasting and Television Station (内蒙古广播电视台) debuted two 3D AI virtual anchors — "Xiaoben" (晓奔) and "Xiaoteng" (晓腾), presented as male and female respectively — for its national Two Sessions coverage series. Together they produced more than ten series products, with multiple segments each exceeding 100,000 views within 24 hours of publication. Although the Two Sessions coverage was produced from Beijing, the anchors were developed by and represented Inner Mongolia's regional broadcaster, marking the station's first deployment of named AI virtual anchors.

In July 2024, China Telecom's Inner Mongolia branch (中国电信内蒙古分公司) signed a cooperation agreement with Inner Mongolia University's National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Mongolian Intelligent Information Processing, formalizing joint research on Mongolian AI technologies including AI synthetic anchors, big data analysis, and large-scale AI model development. That same year, Inner Mongolia University's Mongolian ancient literature digitization project — an 18.98 million yuan government undertaking that had digitized more than 4,766 volumes into over 710,000 images — was recognized as a 2024 Ministry of Culture and Tourism Digital Innovation Demonstration Outstanding Case, further acknowledging the research center's work in Mongolian cultural heritage digitization alongside its virtual anchor innovations.

In August 2024, three events advanced the region's digital human landscape in distinct ways. On August 9, an academic conference on "Metaverse Empowering Grassland Cultural Tourism" (元宇宙赋能草原文化旅游) was held in Ke'erqin Right Front Banner (科尔沁右翼前旗), Xing'an League, co-organized by Communication University of China (中国传媒大学) and the local government, drawing approximately 110 participants to discuss digital human applications for grassland tourism, though the gathering remained a planning forum rather than a deployment. On August 15, China Unicom (中国联通) and Unicom Online (联通在线) jointly launched the HaiNa AI Music Cloud (海纳AI音乐云) platform at the Inner Mongolia Hotel in Hohhot, at an event styled "Digital Melody, Musical Grassland" (数智音韵，乐动草原). The platform centered on an AI digital human singer modeled on real-life musician Ge Xiaohu (葛小虎), art director of the Mongolian Power Ulan Muqir (蒙电乌兰牧骑), described as Unicom's first grassland AI digital human singer, and it also incorporated a Grassland AI Music Accelerator and a grassland-specific large music model. From August 23 to 26, Shanghai-based Huayuan Computing (华院计算) exhibited AI digital human products at the 10th China Museums Expo (第十届博博会) held at Hohhot's Chilecchuan International Convention Center (敕勒川国际会展中心), presenting real-time interactive historical figure reanimations, naked-eye 3D cultural relics displays, and VR immersive experiences, and announcing plans to develop large-model digital humans for public cultural spaces.

In November 2024, Yili's hyper-realistic digital human Jinwan appeared as an interactive exhibit at the 2024 World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang, where visitors could hold immersive conversations and receive product recommendations. The event was outside Inner Mongolia, but it continued to extend Jinwan's profile as one of the most internationally active corporate digital humans associated with an Inner Mongolian enterprise.

In December 2024, the Xing'an League Human Resources and Employment Service Center (兴安盟人力资源和就业服务中心) deployed a 24-hour AI digital human anchor for live job streaming, described as the first such service operating at the league level within Inner Mongolia. By late December 2024, the anchor had accumulated more than 1,000 hours of continuous streaming, attracted 102,000 online job seekers, received over 2,000 resume submissions, and established preliminary employment intent with 983 people, with reporting confirming the service was actively operating on December 29 of that year.

The release of DeepSeek-R1 in January 2025 triggered a rapid succession of government AI deployments across Inner Mongolia, many of them incorporating digital human interfaces. That same month, Inner Mongolia Normal University formally joined the Digital Humanities Professional Development Alliance (数字人文专业发展联盟), organized by Zhonghua Book Company alongside 25 universities, deepening its connection to the national digital humanities scholarly community. Also in January 2025, Urad Middle Banner Convergence Media Center (乌拉特中旗融媒体中心) debuted an AI anchor named "Zijin" (子矜), modeled on real-life host Cao Zijin (曹子衿), delivering roughly four minutes of county-level Two Sessions commentary under the banner "County-Level AI Anchor Discusses Two Sessions." Simultaneously, Inner Mongolia Broadcasting deployed upgraded 3D versions of Xiaoben and Xiaoteng for its "AI数读两会" series, with a CPPCC member present at the rollout describing the anchors as a fresh experience worth promoting widely.

February 2025 was the most concentrated month of digital human and AI deployment activity Inner Mongolia had seen to that point. On February 15, the Hohhot Big Data Management Bureau (呼和浩特市大数据管理局), with technical support from the Inner Mongolia Big Data Industry Development Group (内蒙古大数据产业发展集团), deployed DeepSeek-R1 models across four parameter scales on the government extranet and integrated them into the city's "City Brain" (城市大脑) system, making Hohhot the first city in Inner Mongolia to apply DeepSeek to municipal governance infrastructure. Between February 20 and 24, the Hohhot Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (呼和浩特市人社局) connected DeepSeek to its "Qingcheng Renshe" (青城人社) WeChat public account, enabling 24-hour intelligent customer service for social security, employment, and talent-related inquiries. On February 21, the 2025 Hohhot Spring Wind Action (春风行动) private enterprise recruitment fair included four livestream rooms, among them one staffed by an AI digital human anchor alongside two rooms with human presenters and one for policy interpretation. On February 25, Inner Mongolia Mengcao Ecological Environment (Group) Co., Ltd. (蒙草生态环境（集团）股份有限公司) issued a competitive negotiation procurement announcement for an AI Digital Human System Construction Project covering video content generation, multi-platform livestream interaction, and intelligent customer service integrated with ecological protection concepts, with bids due February 28 at Mengcao's Hohhot headquarters. The following day, on February 26, Keyouzhong Banner (科右中旗) in Xing'an League became the first entity in the league to integrate DeepSeek into government services by launching an AI digital human as a policy spokesperson, producing more than 100 policy explanation videos and deploying a 24-hour AI customer service agent named "Xiao Zheng" (小政) that was operational by March of that year.

In March 2025, a major graduate recruitment fair held on March 22 at Inner Mongolia University, co-organized by the regional Human Resources and Social Security Department, the regional Education Department, Inner Mongolia University, and the Hohhot municipal government, drew 704 employers offering more than 20,000 positions and attracted more than 11,000 attendees. The event deployed AI digital human assistants providing over 1,000 services per day, AI mock interview stations, a DeepSeek-powered intelligent question-and-answer system, and smart resume matching, reflecting the integration of virtual human interfaces into mainstream public employment services.

In April 2025, the Tongliao Municipal Government Service Center (通辽市政务服务中心) launched an AI digital human assistant named "Zheng Xiaotong" (政小通) on April 22, integrating it with DeepSeek and making it accessible via WeChat, mobile, and PC. The system covered more than 17,000 government service guides across more than 40 areas including medical insurance, social insurance, housing fund, and business registration, with second-level response for more than 700 high-frequency service items. A full-time livestreaming component operated through a "1+9" city-county two-level model on Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Video, with 24-hour AI digital human service during off-hours; by the launch date, the service had accumulated 9.1 million cumulative viewers and answered 56,000 questions, representing one of the most comprehensively deployed government digital human services in any part of Inner Mongolia to that point.

On June 20, 2025, the new building of the Inner Mongolia Museum (内蒙古博物院新馆), a 147,000 square-meter facility in Hohhot's Saihan District and the nation's second-largest single-building museum, opened to the public. Its digital human centerpiece was "Honggel" (鸿格尔), a full-body holographic projection AI guide powered by DeepSeek that answered visitor questions about exhibits in real time. The museum also deployed an intelligent robot guide named "Meng Xiaobo" (蒙小博), smart navigation screens, a digital artifact wall displaying more than 400 items, and two VR experiences. In its first three months the facility exceeded 1.82 million visitors and received recognition as the 2024 "Most Innovative Museum in China."

In July 2025, two significant developments occurred in Hohhot. On July 12, at the 2025 Green Computing Power (AI) Conference (2025绿色算力（人工智能）大会), Lenovo Group (联想集团) signed a "City Super Intelligent Body Strategic Cooperation Agreement" (城市超级智能体战略合作协议) with the Hohhot municipal government; Lenovo Senior Vice President Dai Wei (戴炜) outlined a "1+N" intelligent agent architecture — one core AI hub coordinating multiple domain agents — to advance Hohhot's role as a Smart City 4.0 node within the "China Cloud Valley" (中国云谷) framework, with the partnership covering governance, industry, ecology, and livelihood. Separately, Lenovo and Inner Mongolia University had co-authored research on speech technology, resulting in two papers on acoustic echo cancellation and speech enhancement accepted at InterSpeech 2025. On July 29 and 30, an international seminar titled "Cultural Diversity and Digital Humanities" was held in Hohhot, co-organized by Renmin University of China (中国人民大学) and Inner Mongolia Normal University, drawing delegates from multiple Chinese and international institutions to discuss digital technology's role in cultural diversity heritage, innovation, and cultural governance in the digital age.

November 2025 brought three significant confirmations of institutional momentum in the region. On November 10, Inner Mongolia University and Inner Mongolia Daily jointly received the 2025 Wang Xuan News Science and Technology Award (Second Prize) for their Chinese-Mongolian Bilingual AI Synthetic Anchor News Production Platform, the system first announced in July 2020; the ceremony was held in Chengdu, and the award represented Inner Mongolia University's first Wang Xuan recognition. By this point, faculty from Inner Mongolia University's Computer Science College had also had research accepted at CVPR 2026, extending the institution's international academic footprint well beyond its Mongolian-language AI origins. On November 14, the Inner Mongolia AI Model Innovation Space (内蒙古AI模创空间) officially launched in Xincheng District, Hohhot, as a large model innovation ecosystem center providing cloud computing resources and development tools for AI startups as part of the district's "Digital Active District" (数字活区) strategy, positioned alongside a 360 AI and Digital Security Industrial Base and an Embodied Intelligence Data Training Center, with the district government targeting the attraction and cultivation of 30 algorithm companies and startup teams. On November 18, the Hohhot AI Experience Park (科技城AI公园), a 5,800 square-meter facility in the Inner Mongolia National University Science Park Technology City Incubation Center in Xincheng District, opened to the public with a total investment of 15 million yuan; its confirmed features included a virtual digital human greeter, naked-eye 3D screens, AI bionic humanoid figures, AI music creation stations, a Future Travel Capsule, VR experiences, and a Metaverse Art Stage, with five local schools signing cooperation agreements on its opening day. The park was subsequently listed among Hohhot's three major science venues for youth education, consolidating Inner Mongolia's transition from an isolated academic debut in 2020 to a sustained regional infrastructure for AI-driven embodied digital experiences by the close of 2025.

[Apr 2026]