HEFEI, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- A delightful robot named "Xiaoli," capable of monitoring blood pressure, detecting falls and reminding seniors to take medication, attracted significant attention at the 8th World Voice Expo in Hefei, the capital of east China's Anhui Province.

Developed by Beijing-based Seelink Technology Co., Ltd., Xiaoli offers a glimpse into the future of smart elderly care in China. The robot, currently undergoing trials in dozens of nursing homes across the country, is expected to enter more households after further upgrades.

"Thanks to China's increasingly robust developer ecosystem and open, shared technology platforms, developers like us can focus on creating smart applications and products for various industries with greater efficiency and at a lower cost," said Hong Ze, the company's technical director.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China's artificial intelligence (AI) industry reached a scale of over 900 billion yuan (approximately 127 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, representing a year-on-year increase of 24 percent. This growth is underpinned by a rapidly expanding and increasingly diverse developer community.

As of October 24, iFlytek Open Platform, one of China's leading AI development platforms, reported hosting more than 9.5 million developer teams, marking a 23.4 percent increase from the previous year. Collectively, these developers have created over 3.6 million AI applications.

"It took us 11 years to reach the first 2 million developer teams," said Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek. "Now, the platform is gaining about 2 million new developer teams annually, as millions of developers drive innovation and integrate AI into every aspect of life."

Notably, the number of large model development teams has surged by nearly 140 percent year on year to 1.86 million, with 550,000 teams based overseas, according to iFlytek data.

The profile of China's AI developers is also evolving. Once an elite and specialized group, it now includes a more diverse mix of students, hobbyists, and professionals from non-technical backgrounds. The number of female developers and non-programmers is growing rapidly, reflecting AI's expanding reach across society.

A white paper jointly published this year by Zhihu, a Chinese Q&A platform similar to Quora, and Alibaba's AI open model community ModelScope found that developers aged 28 to 32 accounted for 28 percent of China's AI workforce, while those aged 23 to 27 made up 20 percent, demonstrating the sector's youthful momentum.

Among them is Su Xiangbiao, a first-year postgraduate student at Guangdong University of Technology.

In late August this year, Su, who majored in AI during his undergraduate studies, completed developing an intelligent plug-in with his teammates. The project, which translates video game subtitles in real time, had taken months to finish.

The tool also adapts to a player's English proficiency, generates personalized vocabulary and grammar notes, and automatically creates practice question banks, enabling them to learn while playing.

"I'm passionate about AI," Su said. "I hone my skills in open-source AI communities, where enthusiasts from universities across China gather and share the tutorials they've created."

China's universities are rapidly expanding their AI education initiatives. In Anhui Province alone, over 40 universities have established more than 500 AI-related programs, while 38 universities in Beijing have introduced general AI courses. This expansion is strengthening and diversifying the AI talent pipeline.

The growing involvement of more diverse groups is also making AI more inclusive. Cao Jun, a visually impaired developer, began exploring in 2018 how to use AI to make screens "speak," thereby enabling people with visual impairments to navigate phones and computers more effectively.

"The screen-reading software we've developed allows visually impaired individuals to access all computer and mobile phone content through audio," Cao explained. "For example, users can take a photo, and the phone will automatically analyze and describe its content."

He noted that the software developed by his team has now served over 400,000 visually impaired users.

Today, his tech company employs more than 40 staff members, 70 percent of whom are visually impaired. This not only creates job opportunities but also fosters a deeper and more precise understanding of the needs of visually impaired users.

"AI has given us a pair of technological eyes," Cao said. "It helps us integrate into society, expand our possibilities, and truly realize the vision of 'tech for good.'"