By Coco Feng

Copyright scmp

The future of artificial intelligence was on display at Guangzhou’s annual Pazhou Algorithm Competition on Monday, where teams from around the world competed to showcase the latest in applications, hardware and AI agents.
Some 24 finalists in two categories presented innovations – from unmanned boats and humanoid robots to AI addressing elderly care and surgery – all competing for a top prize of 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) for each category along with valuable data and computing resources to support their projects.
Winners stand to qualify for funding from the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area AI Empowerment Fund as well as free office space at an AI incubator in Guangzhou.
Guangzhou, a manufacturing hub, is positioning itself as a technological centre in China.
Among the finalists were teams based outside China, including Delaware-based Markopolo, which has developed AI infrastructure for creating marketing campaign ideas and advertising copy based on customer data from e-commerce sites and emails.
Vidi Labs, a Hong Kong start-up, meanwhile, has designed a wearable for the elderly or visually-impaired named Seekr which converts visual information into real-time voice feedback, allowing users to navigate their surroundings independently and safely.
Both presented their technology remotely.
Kayra Kakcioglu, co-founder and CEO of Paris-based dataLobster, which provides plug-and-play tech solutions designed to help manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises improve operational efficiency and optimise energy use, travelled to Guangzhou for the final.
“I’m very happy to be here so that we can meet investors, potential companies that we can work with as well as the regional government,” Kakcioglu said. “China is an extremely interesting market for us, but without the right partnerships, it is impossible to be successful here.”
The final on Monday covered two tracks of the five-track competition – the AI Innovation Application Competition and the International AI Competition.
The winners of these tracks, including the earlier Large-scale AI Model Algorithm Optimisation Competition and the “National Games” AI Competition for All, will be announced on Tuesday.
The prize for the fifth track, the “Air-Ground” Integrated Collaborative AI Competition which took place in April, has already been announced.
The competition asked participants to use their drones and robots to pinpoint from a photograph live designated animals, such as rabbits, dogs, chickens or geese, in parkland in the shortest possible time.
The competition was ultimately won by a team from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The Guangzhou branch of China Telecom, one of the biggest state-owned telecoms operators, secured second place. The winners were awarded 50,000 yuan and 20,000 yuan respectively.
The competition, organised by the Guangzhou municipal government and the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, has been an annual event since 2022, growing from 262 participants in the inaugural game to more than 8,000 this year across more than 30 countries, including Japan, Singapore and the US.
In April, the Guangdong provincial government promoted policies aimed at attracting AI and robotics talent, including grants of up to 50 million yuan for each “manufacturing innovation hub in AI and robotics” and up to 3 million yuan for each individual company, as part of efforts to build what it called a “global innovation highland”.