Ningxia Digital Human Timeline

In December 2022, the Ningxia Public Security Department, operating through its official Ping'an Ningxia (平安宁夏) social media accounts across WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, and video platforms, announced its first metaverse virtual person: an AI-powered female virtual anchor designed for regular appearances in the department's public communications. A naming campaign was launched inviting citizens to submit proposed names for the character, marking the earliest confirmed instance of a government institution in the autonomous region adopting an embodied AI persona as part of its official public-facing presence.

In February 2023, the metaverse digital virtual human known as Xiaoyi (小翼) served as master of ceremonies for the East-to-West Computing Integrated Computing Service Platform Launch and 2023 Digital Ningxia Ecological Cooperation Conference, held in Ningxia. The event was organized by Digital Ningxia Construction and Operation Co. and Tianyi Cloud Technology (天翼云科技有限公司), with China Telecom Ningxia and China Unicom Ningxia as co-organizers, and marked the launch of what was described at the time as China's first computing power trading and scheduling application system. Xiaoyi's role as virtual MC at a high-profile infrastructure policy event signaled that digital human presentation was already becoming embedded in the region's institutional and corporate event culture.

In September 2023, Xingqing District in Yinchuan launched one of Ningxia's most sustained digital human deployments. The district's Employment and Entrepreneurship Center introduced an AI virtual anchor modeled on the appearance and voice of Center Director Chen Hua, deploying the character to conduct livestream job recruitment events — a format known in Chinese as 直播带岗, or "livestream job posting" — at a recurring series of talent night markets. The initiative was described as a first for Ningxia. Events took place at venues including Yinchuan Pedestrian Street, South Gate Square, Wuyue Plaza, and Haibao Park, establishing a format that would continue and grow for years thereafter.

In October 2023, Ningxia Shengtian Cai Digital Technology (宁夏盛天彩数字科技股份有限公司), a Yinchuan-based national-level animation enterprise founded in 2008 with subsidiaries in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Tianjin, officially launched the Yuan You Ningxia (元游宁夏) metaverse cultural tourism platform. Built using VR, AI, blockchain, and 3D rendering technologies, the platform featured twenty-one of Ningxia's famous scenic spots as digitized environments. Among its defining features were virtual characters referred to as meta-protagonists (元主角), available for user interaction alongside cloud tours, virtual exhibitions, virtual performances, digital collectibles, and social features. The launch was attended by Cai Ju (蔡菊), Deputy Secretary of the CPC Ningxia Committee Propaganda Department and head of the Ningxia Culture and Tourism Department, confirming the platform's standing as an officially endorsed regional initiative from its inception.

In July 2024, Ningxia entered its most concentrated period of digital human activity with two major institutional deployments occurring in the same month. The Ningxia Commerce Department's 2024 livestream e-commerce season, operating under the banner "I'm in Ningxia Selling Great Products" (我在宁夏带好货), launched its AI digital human livestream plan across platforms including Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, and more than ten others. AI digital humans conducted uninterrupted around-the-clock e-commerce livestreaming promoting over 2,100 Ningxia specialty products under the Saishang Premium (赛上优品) brand, with more than 100 livestream e-commerce bases and enterprises across the region participating. The digital human presenters were equipped with ultra-realistic visual rendering, matched lip-syncing, synchronized gestures, and real-time customer interaction capabilities.

Also in July 2024, Ningxia Broadcasting and Television Station inaugurated its AIGC Studio in Yinchuan, releasing a suite of AI-driven products that included an AI digital anchor, an AI audio anchor, and an AI sign language anchor, alongside an AI short video series. The studio simultaneously launched the Yellow River Cloud All-Knowing (黄河云百事通) product, an AI-powered government services interface enabling voice-based queries across more than 120 government service processes, which attracted 12,000 user sessions within its first week of operation. Strategic partnerships were signed at the launch event with Tencent Cloud (腾讯云), Huaqiyun (华栖云), and Ningxia Hope Information Industry (宁夏希望信息产业股份有限公司), establishing a network of technology collaborators for the station's AI media operations.

Additionally in July 2024, an AI digital human terminal was deployed at the Jin Yu Ming Ting Union Station (金宇名庭工会驿站) in Jinfeng District, Yinchuan, as part of an initiative of the Ningxia Federation of Trade Unions (宁夏回族自治区总工会). The installation provided face-to-face human-machine dialogue across ten major service categories — including union orientation, rights protection, legal services, and social security — and was reported to cover more than 100,000 items of union business knowledge and labor law.

In September 2024, the Ningxia Commerce Department published results from the region's AI digital human e-commerce campaign: online sales orders attributed to AI digital human livestreaming had exceeded 55 million yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of more than 35 percent, while AI technology was credited with reducing labor costs by approximately 30 percent. Individual product outcomes included daily potato noodle sales exceeding 120,000 yuan and one flaxseed oil product achieving more than 20,000 monthly orders generating approximately 1.5 million yuan in monthly revenue.

In October 2024, the Ningxia Supply and Marketing Cooperative (宁夏供销合作社) debuted its own AI digital human at the Joyful Autumn: Supply and Marketing for Agriculture (悦动金秋·供销为农) event at the Ningxia Flower Expo Garden in Yinchuan. Powered by AI, large language models, and graphic algorithms, the character was deployed for agricultural product livestreaming as part of the Digital Supply and Marketing national demonstration zone initiative. That same month, the Yuan You Ningxia platform, developed by Ningxia Shengtian Cai Digital Technology and formally filed by the Ningxia Culture and Tourism Department, won the Gold Apricot First Prize (金杏一等奖) at the 2024 Metaverse Data Elements National Competition in Beijing, having competed against 192 entries from across the country. The platform also received recognition from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as a digital innovation demonstration case.

In November 2024, the virtual digital human Tianyu (天妤), developed by Yuan Yuan Technology (元圆科技) — a subsidiary of the publicly listed Tianyu Digital Technology (天娱数科, Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 002354) headquartered in Dalian — was appointed as Ningxia Culture and Tourism Recommender (宁夏文旅推荐官) by the Ningxia Culture and Tourism Department. With more than 5.5 million followers across platforms and recognition through the short drama series Searching Among a Thousand Walls (千壁寻踪), Tianyu represented a nationally prominent virtual influencer engaged as a promotional ambassador for the autonomous region. This appointment was a partnership directed at promoting Ningxia's cultural tourism assets from outside the region, with Yuan Yuan Technology and Tianyu Digital Technology operating from Dalian rather than from within Ningxia. Also in November 2024, Ningxia Hope Information Industry achieved a regulatory milestone when its Xiyan (希言) large language model became the first AI large model in Ningxia — and reportedly the first in all of Northwest China — to complete the national dual filing process, clearing the mandatory pathway for commercially deployed AI models in China.

In January 2025, the Yuan You Ningxia platform attracted sustained national media attention. China News Network reported that the platform had completed fifteen fully digitized scenic spots — including Shapotou, Western Film City, the Western Xia Tombs, and Helan Mountain Rock Paintings — along with four cloud exhibition hall metaverse spaces covering approximately 400 square kilometers of real-area data, and that the platform had accumulated approximately 18 million total impressions. The digital human services offered encompassed AI tour guides, AI exhibition commentators, AI wine sommeliers, and motion-capture digital artists performing virtual concerts for cultural promotion. At a Ningxia government press conference held that same month, Deputy Director Kong Zheng (孔峥) of the Ningxia Culture and Tourism Department formally introduced the platform to an assembled audience, presenting its digital human service range as central to the region's strategy for cultural tourism innovation and investment promotion.

In March 2025, two distinct digital human deployments within Ningxia were reported. The Yinchuan Municipal Small and Medium Enterprise Digital Transformation Capability Center (银川市中小企业数字化转型能力中心) deployed an AI digital human named Xiao Xin (小信), powered by Ningxia Hope Information Industry's Xiyan large language model with DeepSeek distillation technology. Xiao Xin provided 24-hour automated policy consultation, translating complex government documents into plain-language guides with flowcharts and industry case illustrations, and generating customized digital transformation strategies for local businesses seeking to navigate policy incentives. Separately, the Ministry of Education published a confirmation that Ningxia had been designated a pilot region for the National Smart Education Platform full-domain application, with an explicit commitment to exploring the use of AI large language models and virtual digital human technologies for developing smart learning companions, intelligent teaching assistants, and smart homework tools at the provincial scale.

In May 2025, Silicon Intelligence (南京硅基智能科技有限公司), headquartered in Nanjing, deployed its multilingual AI digital humans — supporting English, Arabic, and other languages — for livestreaming of Ningxia goji berry sales to overseas markets. The deployment utilized the company's proprietary Yandi (炎帝) large language model, which had been optimized for agricultural product terminology, and the campaign was reported to have lifted the share of overseas orders from 5 percent to 15 percent. Later in May 2025, Silicon Intelligence was also present at the Ningxia Premium China Tour (宁夏精品中国行) Beijing Station event, held at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing, where it deployed three categories of AI digital human — cultural digital humans, expert digital humans, and presenter digital humans — to promote over 670 agricultural products from Ningxia's Six Special industries. The digital humans at this Beijing event demonstrated the ability to explain Ningxia goji berry planting history and nutritional value, and could dynamically switch into dialect mode in response to audience questions. Both of these Silicon Intelligence deployments were conducted outside Ningxia but were explicitly oriented toward expanding markets for Ningxia agricultural products.

In June 2025, two significant developments unfolded within Ningxia. Ningxia Bifang Jiuzhang Digital Technology (宁夏毕方玖章数字科技有限公司), located in the Digital Economy Industrial Park AI Ecosystem Community in Yinchuan, publicly showcased its Bifang Zhiying (毕方智映) product series. Company Vice President Duan Yonggang highlighted the platform's capacity to generate high-fidelity digital humans in five minutes and produce one-click 4K video output, framing the capability as a direct solution to the lag between rapidly evolving technology and vocational education teaching materials. The company's offerings were directed at the education, vocational training, and industrial application sectors, with a full-lifecycle content production service model. Also in June 2025, the Ningxia Development and Reform Commission published the initial design approval for the Ningxia Financial Cloud (宁夏金融云) Regulatory Service Platform, a project budgeted at 13.1 million yuan with a projected construction period of twelve months. The approved design explicitly included a government virtual digital human (政务虚拟数字人) as a component of the platform's comprehensive digital decision-making dashboard for financial regulation. The June publication represented a design approval rather than an operational launch, meaning the platform remained in the planning-to-construction phase at that point.

In July 2025, Yanchi County hosted the Fourth Western E-Commerce and Cultural Tourism Series event alongside the 2025 China E-Commerce Anchor Competition Northwest Region launch ceremony, held at the Shicheng Ninghao E-Commerce Wholesale Operations Base. The event assembled representatives from Fujian, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Hebei, with more than 100 exhibiting enterprises in attendance. A specially established AI Empowerment Experience Hall (AI赋能体验馆) presented smart livestreaming and digital human interaction as demonstrations of emerging e-commerce technologies, positioning Ningxia within a wider regional conversation about AI-driven commercial futures.

In August 2025, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Smart Cultural Tourism: Digital Future (智创文旅·数启未来) national series held its second stop in Yinchuan — following its inaugural stop in Changsha in July — co-organized by the Ningxia Culture and Tourism Department, Yinchuan Municipal Government, and China Culture Media Group (中国文化传媒集团). The forum featured digital light-and-shadow art exhibitions, AR historical figure interaction including immersive experiences framed around the Western Xia dynasty, VR cultural experiences, holographic projections, and AI smart tour systems, positioning Yinchuan as a national showcase for the integration of digital human and immersive technologies in cultural tourism. Also in August 2025, the Xingqing District AI virtual anchor recruitment initiative, which had been operating continuously since its September 2023 launch, held a special recruitment fair at Guangming Plaza in Yinchuan featuring a dedicated AI Digital Person Live Job Posting Zone. By that stage the initiative had expanded to encompass 22 events in total, attracting 1,119 enterprises and offering more than 31,000 positions across its range of venues — a record that illustrated the durability and scalability of digital human characters in public-sector employment services when applied consistently over multiple years.

[Apr 2026]