In March 2022, Silicon-based Intelligence (硅基智能) anchored one of the earliest clearly commercial, client-facing moves in the province by settling a “Digital Human Global Live Broadcasting Base” in Mianyang, specified as being in Fucheng District, with a first batch of 20 digital-human livebroadcast rooms. In practical terms, this established a local production-and-operations footprint for embodied, human-presenting digital figures that could be used in livestream-style scenarios, positioning Mianyang as an early site of operational scale in Sichuan’s digital-human commercialisation.
In October 2022, Sichuan’s early digital-human development began to show up in outward-facing journalism rather than only in infrastructure build-out when the digital persona Xiao Guan was used alongside a chief reporter from Chuanguan News to provide coverage of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The Congress itself was not a Sichuan-located event, but the deployment mattered for Sichuan because it demonstrated a provincial media brand using a named, human-presenting digital being in a high-profile national-news context rather than treating digital humans as purely experimental.
In December 2023, the same digital-journalist trajectory shifted from politically focused coverage into a wider “digital persona” stage format in Chengdu when the digital journalist Xiao Guan, described as being from Sichuan Online News, appeared at the Sichuan Big Data Annual Conference alongside other digital personas. This moment underscored a pattern that would persist in later Sichuan activity: digital humans were being positioned as front-of-house presenters and representatives for institutions, not simply as backend automation or anonymous avatars, and Chengdu was already functioning as a venue where those public-facing demonstrations were normalised.
In February 2024, a more operational newsroom pattern emerged when Sichuan Newsnet Media (Sichuan Xinwenwang Chuanmei) enhanced its virtual AI anchor Yuan Xiaoya after a comprehensive technology update, explicitly framing the change as an “AI upgrade” to the anchor system. Rather than presenting a one-off event appearance, this pointed to ongoing lifecycle management of a visible, human-presenting digital anchor product inside a Sichuan media organisation, which is a practical indicator of sustained production use.
In April 2024, newsroom digital-human activity in Sichuan expanded from single anchors to workforcelike scale when Sichuan All-Media (Sichuan Quanmeiti) launched 41 digital journalists and characterised this as the country’s largest digital-journalist matrix at that time. This was significant at the provincial level because it implied a shift from isolated pilots to a portfolio approach in which multiple named or role-defined digital journalists could be deployed across beats and formats, making digital humans part of an outward-facing content-production system rather than a novelty layer.
In May 2024, Sichuan’s digital-human development was pushed simultaneously by public-sector mobilisation and by university research, creating a dual track that would later support broader deployments. The “AI and Digital Humans Application Forum” was held in Chengdu as part of the Digital Sichuan Construction Promotion Conference, signalling that “digital humans” were being treated as an application domain within provincial digital-construction agendas rather than as an entertainment-only topic. In the same month, researchers from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China developed the emotionally responsive virtual human Yang Anqing, described as capable of realtime interaction, which reinforced Chengdu’s role as a site where technical capability-building and public-sector convening were happening in parallel.
In June 2024, education-sector adoption reached an applied, classroom-adjacent setting in Zigong when teacher Duan Shiwen used an AI digital human to guide students in hands-on soil experiments during the Zigong Primary Science Teaching Seminar for the 2024–2025 cycle. This example mattered because it used an embodied, guiding digital figure as a teaching facilitator in a practical lab-style activity, illustrating a different operational model from media anchors and digital journalists: the digital human as an instructional guide in a structured learning workflow.
In July 2024, the province’s application emphasis was reinforced institutionally when a launch event for the First China Digital Human Application Capability Competition was held at Sichuan University (Wangjiang Campus) in Chengdu. By serving as the venue for the competition launch, Sichuan University acted as a convening node that linked research and skills signalling to the province’s visible digital-human agenda, and it provided an explicit “application capability” framing that aligned with Sichuan’s later pattern of industry-and-government-facing deployments.
In October 2024, a culture-and-youth-education use case appeared when Sichuan People’s Publishing House (Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe) developed the AI digital human Pi Aike for children’s career education at the Tianfu Book Fair. The Sichuan-specific significance lay in a provincial cultural institution using a named digital human to deliver structured educational content, extending the province’s digitalhuman footprint beyond news production and into publishing-linked learning experiences.
In November 2024, hardware-forward embodiments became more visible in a Sichuan-located industry showcase when Chengdu Mingtu Technology (成都明途科技) showcased an “AI Embodied Intelligence Holographic Capsule” at the China (Mianyang) Science and Technology City International High-Tech Expo. This was a specifically Sichuan-sited commercial presentation because it took place in Mianyang, and it positioned a Chengdu company as a supplier of a physical interaction form factor that could present a digital human in a capsule-like display environment rather than only on flat screens.
In December 2024, Sichuan’s cultural digital-human work was projected outside the province when Sichuan Cultural Industry Investment Group (Sichuan Wenhua Chanye Touzi Jituan) presented a Su Shi digital human as a highlight at the China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair in Shenzhen. The fair itself was not in Sichuan, but the Sichuan-specific development was that a provincial cultural-investment group used a named historical-figure digital human as a high-attendance, interactive cultural interface, reported as drawing over 3,000 attendees with 98% response accuracy, demonstrating that Sichuan-produced digital-human cultural IP was being showcased competitively on a national trade-fair stage.
In April 2025, Sichuan’s digital-human development included foundational technique-building aimed at improving on-screen lifelikeness when Sichuan Fengmian Media Technology Co., Ltd. (Sichuan Fengmian Meiti Keji Youxian Gongsi) applied for a patent titled “A Digital Human Expression Driving Method, System, and Program Product,” described as targeting improved emotional expression in digital humans. In the context of Sichuan’s broader deployments, this kind of IP activity was a technicalenablement layer: it focused on expression control and affective fidelity, which are prerequisites for digital humans that must appear credible in journalism, public service, and cultural interpretation roles.
In August 2025, the attached research framed Sichuan as having moved from isolated examples into a province-wide, cross-sector posture in which government departments, universities, and enterprises were actively deploying AI-powered digital humans across journalism, cultural preservation, education, employment services, finance, public service, and tourism. Within that framing, Sichuan’s digital-human portfolio was described as including virtual spokespersons, AI-driven teaching assistants, historical figure recreations (explicitly including Su Shi and a “young Li Bai ”), digital police officers, and funeral service guides, indicating that embodied digital beings were being treated as front-line service and communication interfaces rather than as confined to marketing or entertainment. The same August 2025 overview positioned Chengdu as the provincial hub where digital humans were appearing in government offices, classrooms, live events, and shopping centres, supported by initiatives such as an “AI Digital Human Cloud Platform,” deployment of virtual brand ambassadors, and an “Education Digital Human Competition,” alongside compute support from institutions including Chengdu Supercomputing Center. In that ecosystem description, companies cited as leading commercial initiatives in Sichuan included Mingtu Technology, Tianfu Bank (Tianfu Yinhang), and Sichuan Chuantou Zhisheng Data Technology (四川川投智胜数字科技有限公司), while Chengdu’s company set was described as including 4U Tech (4U Tech) and Zhisuanyunteng (Zhisuanyunteng) in work spanning hyperrealistic avatars, work-oriented AI assistants, and metaverse performance systems. In the same month, Chengdu’s subsequent deployment of large-format holographic digital-human experiences was being channelled through a city-backed “real-world validation” framing for robotics and AI, which created an applied pathway for digital-human-like interactive installations in public venues.
In September 2025, the tourism-and-public-venue branch of Sichuan’s digital-human development was made explicit when Sichuan Chuantou Zhisheng Data Technology and Chengdu Intelligent Computing Center described a joint approach built around a Sichuan tourism vertical model named “Zhilyu,” supported by Chengdu Intelligent Computing Center compute resources. In that account, the partnership framed its application stack as serving tourists, scenic areas, and government, and it identified “spacetime companion” digital beings as a core product layer—including the panda character Anyi and the Wuhou Shrine -themed digital figure Xiao Zhuge —with the “Zhilyu” model described as being applied across more than 20 scenic spots and museums, explicitly naming Hailuogou and Wuhou Shrine among the referenced destinations. This September 2025 snapshot was Sichuan-specific not only because it targeted Sichuan cultural-tourism contexts, but because it tied digital humans to a provincial-scale compute-and-application pipeline intended to operate across multiple cities and attractions rather than as a single-site installation.
In November 2025, Chengdu’s deployment pattern produced a visible, on-site digital-human-style installation in a major tourist zone when Chengdu Xinglanxing Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (成都星蓝星数 字科技有限公司) was reported as having brought a “holographic intelligent screen” into the Jinli Ancient Street area as an applied, public-facing scenario. The installation was described as creating human-presenting, Three Kingdoms-themed “cyber” figures through a large-format, naked-eye 3D holographic display approach, with the project framed as part of Chengdu’s robotics-and-AI “real-world validation” and positioned as an interaction layer that could make historical content experiential in a tourist setting rather than purely informational. Critically for distinguishing location, this was a Chengdu-based deployment in Sichuan’s core cultural-tourism circuit, rather than a Sichuan-made exhibit shown elsewhere.
In December 2025, Chengdu’s digital-human development showed a parallel expansion into massattendance, street-level consumption settings through local “technology showcase” scenarios linked to sports and city events. Reporting on a Chengdu public event described as a “World Cup Park” setting associated with the ITTF mixed team tournament period, Chengdu Mingtu Technology was described as displaying multiple embodied-intelligence terminals, including a 6-inch holographic cabin that provided voice guidance and business consultation through a “floating” digital human. In the same month, Chengdu Xinglanxing Digital Technology was also described in event coverage as demonstrating its naked-eye, holographic display equipment in the same public setting and indicating that related installations were already being used in Chengdu cultural-tourism venues such as Jinli, reinforcing a pattern in which Sichuan digital-human experiences were being productised into deployable hardwareand-content packages that could move between tourist attractions and high-footfall city events.
In January 2026, digital humans were described as being pushed further into routine public-service operations inside Chengdu when the district-level service system in Jinniu District was reported as adding an on-site guiding digital human named Jinxiao i as part of a broader “smart service” setup that combined multiple service touchpoints. In the same month, a national-level public notice hosted by the Tianjin municipal industry and information authority, relaying an Industry and Information Technology Ministry process, made public the selected list of “2025 Metaverse Typical Cases,” in which multiple Sichuan-located digital-human deployments were explicitly listed, including a Kangba Tibetanlanguage weather-broadcast digital human in Ganzi, an “intelligent interactive” digital human Yuanqi submitted by Chengdu Jiuzhou Electronic Information Systems Co., Ltd. (成都九洲电子信息系统股份 有限公司), Wuhou Shrine Museum’s digital human, and the Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum’s “AI Du Fu” case. Taken together, January 2026 marked a point where Sichuan’s digital-human deployments were not only operating locally in public-service halls, but were also being enumerated in a formal, nation-level case-selection context that highlighted Sichuan sites and implementers as reference examples.
In February 2026, Sichuan’s cultural-tourism direction for digital humans was illustrated through a highrealism, historical-figure interaction scenario at Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum, where an exhibition space titled “Dream Back to Luoyang” was described as enabling visitors to conduct nakedeye 3D dialogue with hyper-realistic 3D digital humans of Li Bai and Du Fu. Positioned within the museum setting, this February 2026 deployment exemplified a mature form of the “historical figure recreation” approach referenced in the August 2025 Sichuan overview, but with interaction and presentation designed for sustained public access rather than for one-time stage demonstration.
[Feb 2026]
2025
April 7, 2025: Sichuan Fengmian Media Technology Co., Ltd. applies for patent “A Digital Human Expression Driving Method, System, and Program Product” to enhance emotional expression in digital humans.
2024
June 2, 2024: Teacher Duan Shiwen uses an AI digital human to guide students in hands-on soil experiments during the 2024-2025 Zigong Primary Science Teaching Seminar.
December 13, 2024: Sichuan Cultural Industry Investment Group’s Su Shi digital human becomes a highlight at the 20th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair, drawing over 3,000 attendees with 98% response accuracy.
November 8, 2024: Chengdu Mingtu Technology showcases its AI Embodied Intelligence Holographic Capsule at the 12th China (Mianyang) Science and Technology City International High-Tech Expo.
October 15, 2024: Sichuan People’s Publishing House develops AI digital human “Pi Aike” for children’s career education at the 2024 Tianfu Book Fair.
May 28, 2024: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China researchers develop emotionally responsive virtual human “Yang Anqing” capable of real-time interaction.
May 22, 2024: “AI and Digital Humans Application Forum” held in Chengdu as part of the Digital Sichuan Construction Promotion Conference.
April 19, 2024: Sichuan All-Media launches 41 digital journalists, forming China’s largest digital journalist matrix.
February 24, 2024: Sichuan Newsnet Media enhances virtual AI anchor Yuan Xiaoya with latest AI upgrades after comprehensive technology update.
July 3, 2024: Launch event for the 2024 First China Digital Human Application Capability Competition held at Sichuan University, Wangjiang Campus, Chengdu.
2023
December 15, 2023: Digital journalist Xiao Guan from Sichuan Online News appears at the 2023 Sichuan Big Data Annual Conference in Chengdu alongside other digital personas.
2022
March 12, 2022: Silicon-based Intelligence “Digital Human Global Live Broadcasting Base” officially settles in Fucheng District, Mianyang City, Sichuan Province with first batch of 20 digital human live broadcast rooms.
October 17, 2022: “Xiaoguan Digital People” and chief reporter from Chuanguan News provide coverage of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.