New Stage in China's Digital Governance Transformation

The Cyberspace Administration of China has released a comprehensive guideline for the deployment and application of large AI models across government operations, marking a new stage in China's digital governance transformation.

The document standardizes how large AI models should be integrated into public administration, with the goal of improving efficiency, decision-making, and public services while ensuring safety, reliability and compliance.

At the heart of the guideline is the vision of "smart, secure and people-centered governance." AI models are expected to enhance complex semantic understanding, multimodal content generation, and knowledge integration, providing powerful tools to assist civil servants in delivering more convenient services to citizens and enterprises.

The framework identifies four core domains for AI applications: government services, social governance, administrative operations, and auxiliary decision-making.

In government services, AI-driven systems will support intelligent Q&A, automated form-filling, and personalized guidance to streamline service delivery.

In social governance, technologies like computer vision and time-series modeling will strengthen infrastructure monitoring, risk prediction, and law enforcement efficiency.

For administrative operations, AI will assist in document drafting, information retrieval, and task distribution in government offices, reducing the burden on grassroots staff.

For auxiliary decision-making, AI will improve disaster prediction, emergency response simulations, and policy evaluation through data-driven modeling and reasoning.

The guideline also emphasizes standardized deployment and collective management. Governments at all levels are instructed to avoid "fragmented" construction and share computing infrastructure under the "East Data, West Computing" project. Provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions are encouraged to establish unified service platforms to enable cross-departmental AI model reuse, ensuring coordinated digital transformation.

Data governance forms the foundation of this effort. The authorities are required to build high-quality, traceable and authoritative datasets to train and refine government models. Strict management of data sources, security logs and algorithm behavior is mandated to prevent information leaks and protect state secrets.

Security and reliability are central to the framework. The document requires content auditing, algorithmic transparency, real-time risk controls, and user interface warnings to prevent misinformation and safeguard government credibility. It calls for comprehensive oversight throughout the model lifecycle — from training and deployment to operation and retirement — ensuring that AI remains an "auxiliary" tool rather than a decision-maker.

To sustain long-term success, the guideline introduces a continuous optimization mechanism, encouraging departments to update models regularly based on user feedback and technological advances. It also promotes the establishment of national standards, evaluation systems, and training programs to improve officials' AI literacy and strengthen public understanding of AI's role in governance.

Source: Science and Technology Daily