Taikonauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin successfully completed all assigned tasks at 1:32 p.m. (Beijing time), after approximately eight hours of extravehicular activities. They worked together closely with the support of the space station’s robotic arm and scientific researchers on Earth.
A spacewalk was conducted by Tang Hongbo and Jiang Xinlin, who have since returned safely to the Wentian lab module.
China launched the Shenzhou-17 manned spaceship on Oct. 26, 2023. Its crew conducted a repair test in their first extravehicular mission on Dec. 21 last year.
During their second extravehicular mission, the three taikonauts completed maintenance work on the Tianhe core module’s solar wings, addressing the impact of small space particles. According to the agency, the solar wing’s power generation function is operating normally after evaluation and analysis.
It was the first time the taikonauts completed the in-orbit maintenance of extravehicular facilities. The Shenzhou-17 crew also inspected the status of the space station’s modules during their spacewalk.
The three taikonauts are scheduled to carry out a variety of space science and technology experiments during the remainder of their space journey, the agency said.
The guidelines are for teachers, school officials, parents, and schoolchildren, to assist in the proper and ethical use of AI, said the ministry.
The 41-page document gives a definition of AI and how it works, and mentions AI tools such as chatbots.
It says that the use of AI should help to improve the quality of education, and remain in line with national educational regulations.
The guidelines also call for a balanced integration of AI tools into the learning process, since these tools provide both new opportunities and potential risks.
“The use of AI in education must be constantly monitored and evaluated for its impact, taking into account the pace of development of technology and especially of AI systems and tools,” said the document.
Meanwhile, it notes that AI should serve as support without replacing the responsibilities of schoolchildren, teachers or administrators in decision-making.
In the past year, countries worldwide have been actively engaged in AI development tailored for local languages, reflecting their profound considerations in the domain of digital sovereignty.
{{Emergence of diverse AI models}}
In late 2022, the release of the English generative AI ChatGPT by the U.S.-based company OpenAI sparked a global trend in developing generative AI models for local languages.
Notably, in China, models like Baidu’s ERNIE Bot and iFlytek’s Xinghuo have undergone rapid iterations, showcasing impressive Chinese language-processing capabilities and serving as productivity tools for many businesses.
“China has made rapid progress in relevant research, with some cross-domain large models achieving breakthroughs, and the development trend of large models for vertical domains is also very promising,” Chen Xiaoping, chairman of the AI Ethics Committee of the Chinese Artificial Intelligence Association, told Xinhua.
The generative AI landscape is also thriving in Europe. In France, by September of the previous year, 79 startups were already specializing in the field. Notably, Mistral, an AI company valued at almost 2 billion euros (around 2.15 billion U.S. dollars), stands out for introducing the versatile “Mixtral8x7B” model proficient in French, Spanish, Italian, English, and German.
In Russia, YandexGPT said it outperformed ChatGPT 3.5 in Russian language responses and has passed the Russian Unified State Exam.
Simultaneously, countries like Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore are actively participating in the development of generative AI models tailored to their respective languages.
{{Building sovereign AI capabilities}}
This global trend not only underscores the dynamic evolution of generative AI across diverse linguistic landscapes, but also highlights the growing significance of “sovereign AI” worldwide.
“Sovereign AI” is a frequently mentioned concept in the wake of the popularity of generative AI. It generally refers to a country’s support for AI infrastructure development, training large models with data that align with the country’s culture and thinking, and fostering a local ecosystem for AI products.
People and countries now recognize that they have to utilize their own data, keep their own data, process that data, and develop their own AI, said Nvidia Corp chief executive Jensen Huang.
Last year, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire publicly stated that France and Europe at large must develop their own generative AI. He pledged to increase the funds raised to invest in tech innovation.
Similar concerns have been voiced by various countries, including India.
“We are determined that we must have our own sovereign AI,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Indian minister of state for electronics and information technology, said recently.
“People realize that they can’t afford to export their country’s knowledge, their country’s culture for somebody else to then resell AI back to them,” Huang said.
Such words underscore a significant challenge in developing sovereign AI globally.
Currently, American enterprises dominate the field of AI, and for other countries to keep pace, they must adopt American products, and such dependence could potentially constrain their subsequent development.
Against this backdrop, data analysis experts caution that the predominant use of English in building AI language models, coupled with most suppliers originating from the United States, may result in a heavy reliance on American providers, leading to a lack of full independence in many AI technologies.
{{Tackling potential digital divide}}
The global development of generative AI is uneven, potentially leading to new inequalities.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting earlier this year: “We need a systematic effort to increase access to AI so that developing economies can benefit from its enormous potential. We need to bridge the digital divide instead of deepening it.”
Chen pointed out that for the new problems arising in the era of AI, it is necessary to pursue a unity of economic and social benefits while maintaining high-quality development, to effectively ensure and improve the well-being of society and mankind as a whole.
In this process, China has shown good momentum in the field of AI.
Ronnie Lins, director of the China-Brazil Center for Research and Business, told reporters in April last year that Brazil’s AI development is not yet sufficient, while China and the United States have invested heavily in AI.
AI could have an impact on jobs globally, Lins noted, expecting China to leverage its strengths and contribute to creating new opportunities for young people through the application of new technologies.
The Global Forum on the Ethics of AI 2024 addressed the aforementioned issues. In the current landscape of diverse language AI developments, Gabriela Ramos, assistant director-general for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, emphasized the need for global cooperation.
“We need true global coordination and knowledge-sharing to build a responsible AI ecosystem that benefits everyone,” said Ramos.
Breton described the move as “historic, world first, pioneering” on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, emphasizing that negotiators have found the “perfect balance between innovation and safety.”
In December, EU lawmakers and member states reached a political agreement on the key provisions of the AI Act, hailed by the European Commission as the “first-ever comprehensive legal framework on AI worldwide.”
However, the complexity of the legislation prompted months-long technical refinement, during which countries like France and Germany expressed concerns particularly regarding the stringent regulatory rules for powerful AI models, prompting a new round of discussions on its contents.
The European Parliament is anticipated to vote on the finalized text in March or April before it becomes law, with the AI Act slated to enter into force 20 days after publication in the official journal.
While the legislation will not take immediate effect, certain rules will be implemented within six months, and other aspects will be enforced two years later.
Having received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year, Neuralink initiated its first human trial to test the implant. Musk also disclosed in a separate X post that the first product from Neuralink will be named Telepathy.
According to reports, Neuralink’s ongoing PRIME Study focuses on evaluating the safety of the wireless brain-computer interface and surgical robot. The trial aims to assess the functionality of the interface, allowing individuals with quadriplegia to control devices through their thoughts.
Despite calls for scrutiny regarding safety protocols, Neuralink has been actively recruiting participants since September for its study trial. The startup has not responded to a Reuters request for additional details.
Notably, Neuralink has faced challenges, including a fine for violating U.S. Department of Transportation rules. Last November, four U.S. lawmakers urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Musk for alleged securities fraud related to the safety of Neuralink’s brain implant.
Neuralink’s technology primarily relies on the “Link” implant, a device the size of five stacked coins placed inside the human brain through invasive surgery. According to Pitchbook, the California-based company had over 400 employees last year and secured at least $363 million in funding.
While Musk garners attention for Neuralink, he is not alone in the brain-machine interface research field. Neuralink’s potential collaboration with Synchron, an implant developer, has been reported, with Synchron’s version not requiring skull incisions for installation. Synchron successfully implanted its first device in a U.S. patient in July 2022.
The rocket blasted off at 12:03 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, and sent a group of satellites into the planned orbits.
This launch marks the third flight mission of the Lijian-1 carrier rocket series.
The Long March-7 Y8 rocket, carrying Tianzhou-7, blasted off at 10:27 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan, the CMSA said.
After about 10 minutes, Tianzhou-7 separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit. Its solar panels soon unfolded. The agency declared the launch a complete success.
Wednesday’s launch is the first mission of China’s manned space project this year. It is also the 507th mission of the Long March rocket series.
The mission is the sixth flight of the space station cargo delivery system consisting of the Tianzhou cargo craft and the Long March-7 carrier rocket.
The cargo craft and launch vehicle were respectively developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, both of which are affiliated with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
Tianzhou-7 will take three hours for the rendezvous and docking with the space station. Previous Tianzhou missions regularly took about 6.5 hours in rendezvous and docking. The exception was the Tianzhou-5 mission, which only took about two hours.
Tianzhou-7 will adopt a new mode of rendezvous and docking yet to be verified in orbit, which is expected to give better play to the guidance, navigation, and control systems of the spacecraft, according to Li Zhiyong, a researcher at the CAST.
Tianzhou-7 is the seventh cargo craft developed by the CAST. “As an improved fully-sealed cargo craft, it has the largest cargo transport capacity, the highest cargo-delivery efficiency, and the most complete in-orbit support capability in the world,” said Li.
Tianzhou-7 carries more than 260 items of supplies, including those for the astronaut system, space station system, application tasks, and cargo spacecraft system, as well as other engineering goods, featuring a variety of cargo and large-sized items. The total weight of onboard materials reached about 5.6 tonnes.
Customized cargo packages for experiment payloads and other large-scale goods, each weighing over 100 kilograms, will be applied in the operation of the space station, space science experiments, and astronaut life support.
Tianzhou-7 also sends 2,400 kilograms of living supplies for the astronauts, including Lunar New Year goods and fresh fruits and vegetables. The packaging design has been optimized to ensure longer storage time and freshness.
The application system has loaded Tianzhou-7 with a total of 61 items weighing 473 kilograms, including experiment payloads, experiment units and samples, consumable items, and spare parts, to support continuous space experiments, according to Liu Wei, a researcher at the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The items also contain a set of life support devices to keep cell samples in good condition during this mission and a set of microfluidic chips with the temperature kept at 4 degrees Celsius, said Liu.
Those items will be transferred to the space station’s experiment facility to carry out a total of 33 scientific experiments, such as the effect of space microgravity on human bone cells, the propellant fluid transport and stability under variable gravity, and the growth of nano precious metals in solution under microgravity. The experiments cover fields such as space life science, space material science, microgravity fluid physics, and combustion science, Liu added.
According to the plan, China will launch the Tianzhou-8 cargo spacecraft from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site this year. The site is the country’s fourth launch site and the only one by the seaside.
The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center launched the commercial rocket from waters off the coast of Haiyang, east China’s Shandong Province, at 1:30 p.m. (Beijing Time).
It was the first flight mission of the YL-1 commercial carrier rocket.
