From 2023, Jiangsu began treating AI-generated digital humans as a province-wide capability rather than a single-product novelty, with early public signals emphasizing ecosystem formation and public-sector application. A notable marker in mid-2023 was the cooperation agreement signed by the Wuxi Economic Development Zone (无锡经济开发区) with China Media Group to develop a digital human industry thread, which framed digital humans as an industrial-development track tied to media-grade production and regional coordination. By 2023, local reporting also positioned AIGC-driven “digital human” usage as already spilling into everyday commerce scenarios, including small-business livestream contexts, signaling that Jiangsu’s digital human story would evolve across both institutional and consumer-facing deployments rather than remaining confined to labs or pilot showcases.
Across 2024, the narrative broadened into tourism, culture, governance, and productized commercial experiments, with Jiangsu appearing as a stage for both platform demonstrations and localized “service hall” style implementations. A cultural-tourism emphasis surfaced in connection with Baidu showcasing advanced digital human technology within province-linked cultural exhibits, while media and content production capability was highlighted by Jiangsu Star Image Culture Media Co., Ltd. (江苏星影互动文化传媒有限公司) producing lifelike historical-figure digital humans using dome light-field approaches. In governance, the AI governance digital human Xiaohua Xiaoqiao was described as deployed at the Huqiao Administrative Service Hall and later recognized in a national conference context, illustrating how digital humans in Jiangsu were framed as interfaces for administrative service delivery as well as branding artifacts for “smart government” achievements. In parallel, consumer-packaging and retail-adjacent experimentation appeared via Origen launching “interactive smart packaging” featuring a virtual health assistant developed with Next Generation Culture (北京次世文化传媒有限公司), reinforcing that Jiangsu-linked digital human activity was not limited to full-screen presenters but also included embedded virtual assistants attached to product experiences.
In early 2025, two threads converged: formalized innovation signaling through competitions and associations, and the continuing integration of digital humans into mainstream telecom and entertainment programming. The “Mobile Cup” Jiangsu Digital Human Application Innovation Contest, co-hosted by the Jiangsu Artificial Intelligence Society (江苏省人工智能学会), Nanjing University, and China Mobile Jiangsu, presented the province’s digital human agenda as an applications-first pipeline spanning universities and enterprises, and it implicitly normalized digital humans as a standard toolset across sectors including education, tourism, healthcare, media, and commerce. Around the same period, China Mobile Jiangsu was described as launching a digital human AI feature for Lunar New Year greetings in collaboration with Huawei core network capabilities, illustrating how “digital human” features were being packaged into mass-market user experiences rather than remaining a specialist enterprise service. International industry signaling also intersected with Jiangsu’s cultural calendar through Korea Virtual Human Industry Association (kovhia.com) participating in the Eastern Zhou International Animation Week (东布洲国际动画周) in Nantong, indicating that Jiangsu’s digital human narrative was also being situated within animation-IP and content-economy networks, not only within enterprise software and public administration.
From mid-2025 onward, the Jiangsu story in these materials becomes most sharply defined by verifiable corporate, regulatory, and capital-markets signals tied to digital humans as scalable commerce infrastructure, particularly in Nanjing. Nanjing Silicon Intelligence Technology Group Co., Ltd. is presented as moving through financing and listing-preparation milestones during 2025, including a June financing round and an August product milestone described as a fully automated content production platform, aligning the company’s digital human framing with enterprise deployment readiness rather than only capability statements. In September 2025, Suning.com Group Co., Ltd. (苏宁易购集团股份有限公司) was reported planning “AI digital human” livestream programming as part of Double 11 execution, explicitly tying large-scale digital-human sessions to an official livestream studio base at its Nanjing headquarters, which positions digital humans in Jiangsu not merely as marketing visuals but as labor-substitution media operations that can run continuously across platforms. By November 2025, provincial digital-consumption “scene” initiatives were described as selecting key enterprises and named innovation scenes, with the same Nanjing-based company’s digital human livestream platform appearing as part of that consumption-scene framing, suggesting a policy-to-platform loop in which provincial scene-building both validates and accelerates digital-human commerce infrastructure in Jiangsu.
Entering late 2025 and early 2026, compliance markers become central to the chronology, and the documents portray regulation as a practical proxy for “what is deployable at scale” in Jiangsu’s digital human economy. The national deep-synthesis algorithm filing regime is used in these materials as the most externally checkable evidence that specific digital-human generation functions exist under named entities in Jiangsu, including a December 2024 record registered under Jiangsu Biying Technology Co., Ltd. (江苏碧英科技有限公司) describing a digital-human video generation purpose associated with the Suning ecosystem, and a January 2026 entry associated with the Nanjing-based digital human provider describing lip-synchronised digital-human video generation using user audio and template video. In parallel, the overseas-listing path is described as adding another compliance layer for Jiangsu digital human firms seeking international capital, with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会) publishing supplementary-material requirements in late December 2025 that were linked in market reporting to the same Nanjing applicant, focusing attention on business-model clarity, AI involvement, and litigation disclosure as part of the listing process. In January 2026, Jiangsu’s broader commercialization pattern is also extended beyond Nanjing through Changzhou reporting that described consumer-facing deployments including mall livestreaming and guidance functions, plus a cultural-tourism “digital human IP factory” style project attributed to Jiangsu Maike Digital Space Creation Co., Ltd. (江苏麦克数字空间营造有限公司) and Jiangsu Yuanyu Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (江苏圆睿数码科技有限公司), reinforcing a second Jiangsu pathway where digital humans are framed as reusable IP and scene-infrastructure for tourism interpretation and livestream selling rather than only as single-brand spokespeople.
[Feb 2026]
2025
April 2025 – Korea Virtual Human Industry Association (KOVHIA) participated in the 6th Eastern Zhou International Animation Week in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, with presentations on animation IP survival strategies.
February 2025 – Jiangsu Mobile launched digital human AI feature for Lunar New Year greetings in collaboration with Huawei Core Network.
2024
December 2024 – KOVHIA announced partnership with Dongbuzhou in Haimen, Nantong, Jiangsu Province for global expansion in virtual human and AI content.
October 2024 – AI governance digital human “Xiaohua Xiaoqiao” deployed at Huqiao Administrative Service Hall in Kunshan won national recognition at the 2024 China Digital Human Conference.
August 2024 – Baidu unveiled advanced digital human technology at a cultural exhibit in Jiangsu Province as part of the province’s digital tourism enhancement initiative.
July 2024 – Jiangsu Star Image Culture Media Co., Ltd. leveraged dome light field technology to create lifelike digital humans of historical figures like poet Li Bai.
June 2024 – Jiangsu Yuanli Digital Technology Co., Ltd. showcased capabilities in creating lifelike animated characters with advanced motion capture technology.
May 2024 – Origen launched “Interactive Smart Packaging” featuring virtual health assistant “Xiaoxi” in collaboration with Next Generation Culture.
2023
July 2023 – Wuxi Economic Development Zone in Jiangsu Province signed cooperation agreement with Central Radio and Television General Station (CRTGS) to develop digital human industry.
March 2023 – AIGC digital human applications were reported blooming across Jiangsu, including live-streaming applications for local businesses like a Nanjing fried skewer shop.