XinhuaNet (新华网股份有限公司), the online platform of China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, has emerged as a prominent actor in the development, deployment, and normalization of digital humans within China’s digital media and governance ecosystem. Its approach to digital humans operates across three interconnected dimensions: the in-house production of AI avatars for news and cultural programming, the integration of digital human services into public governance and civic life, and the promotion of AI-powered virtual beings as symbols of national technological progress and innovation.
XinhuaNet has developed proprietary hyper-realistic digital humans, most notably “Xiaozhu,” who debuted in June 2022. Xiaozhu is positioned not simply as a news anchor but as a “digital cultural officer,” capable of reciting classical poetry, explaining traditional customs, and acting as an immersive educational interface. These digital humans are deployed across livestreams, cultural short videos, and nationally themed content such as programming around the 24 solar terms, reinforcing traditional values through contemporary AI-driven storytelling while maintaining the authority, consistency, and controllability required of official communication.
Beyond media production, XinhuaNet is embedding digital humans directly into public infrastructure and governance scenarios. Use cases include digital human instructors in school-level “thought and politics” education, AI-powered livestream environments for public policy explanation and Q&A, and service-oriented avatars operating in government service centers and financial institutions. These deployments align with broader national objectives around smart governance and AI-mediated citizen engagement, marking a shift from experimental digital media formats toward operational public service systems that provide informational, interactive, and affective support in real time.
These efforts are supported by Xinhua Zhiyun (新华智云科技有限公司), the organization’s AI and cloud computing subsidiary, which develops platforms capable of generating digital humans from photographs or speech inputs for rapid deployment. Zhiyun’s technologies serve both internal editorial workflows and external partnerships, enabling scalable creation of customized digital humans for applications spanning commerce, education, and governance. In parallel, XinhuaNet actively promotes its digital human technologies as replicable industry models, emphasizing their capacity to reduce production costs, increase audience engagement, and preserve ideological coherence within AI-mediated communication.