Rural communities in China are adopting AI for farming, pest control, and ecommerce, driven by widespread internet access and mobile phone use.

Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba are leading this shift.

Tencent’s chatbot Yuanbao and Alibaba’s Tongyi offer image recognition and voice interaction to help with farming, document review, and subsidy searches.

In Jiaohe, Chinese northeastern province of Jilin, a village chief collaborated with Tencent to introduce AI to residents, who now use Yuanbao for farming advice, livestock management, and online business promotions.

Tencent launched an “AI Goes Rural” program to adapt its AI for rural needs, working with local officials on education.

Meanwhile, Alibaba partnered with Zhejiang’s provincial government to integrate AI and address rural challenges.