Chi Fulin: In the era of AI, how can Hainan Free Trade Port achieve new development

As a strategic technology leading the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an important factor in determining the future international competitive landscape. It is not only a technological innovation, but also a fundamental and strategic productivity change. Compared with the construction paths of free trade ports such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai in the era of industrialization and informatization, the high standard construction of Hainan Free Trade Port in the AI era is a new and significant issue.

In the era of AI, Hainan Free Trade Port faces significant opportunities

The fourth industrial revolution, represented by AI, is far ahead of the first three industrial revolutions, such as steam engine, electricity, computer and Internet, in terms of technology development and diffusion, and the depth and breadth of its impact on human society. In this context, the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port is facing both significant opportunities and important challenges. Overall, opportunities outweigh challenges. The key is to establish institutional arrangements as soon as possible and promote Hainan Free Trade Port to achieve a leading and demonstrative breakthrough in AI.

AI will profoundly change the form of global free trade ports. The future free trade port will not only be a geographical distribution center for goods, but also have the conditions to become a high-level open platform characterized by data as the key production factor, digital services as the center, and institutional integration innovation under the background of AI. For example, it is expected that by 2030, the proportion of global digital service trade will reach 75% of global service trade, becoming the main form of service trade; From the perspective of industrial form, the proportion of manufacturing enterprises highly dependent on AI and other technologies worldwide will increase from 26% in 2025 to 68% in 2030. Virtual elements such as algorithms, computing power, and data will become the key to winning industrial competition; From the perspective of the rule system, its focus will accelerate the transformation from tariffs related to goods trade to intelligent infrastructure and rule systems centered on computing power, algorithms, and data.

Hainan is committed to building a modern industrial system with local characteristics and advantages, and has an urgent need for digital transformation. The deep integration of AI technology will bring huge development space for the upgrading of traditional industries and the cultivation of emerging industries. On the other hand, there has not been a significant breakthrough in the AI development of Hainan Free Trade Port at present. As of March 2026, the scale of intelligent computing power in Hainan Province accounts for only about 0.8% of the total national intelligent computing, and the revenue scale of core industries in the digital economy, including AI, is only 5% of that in Zhejiang Province.

It should also be noted that in the era of AI, Hainan Free Trade Port has outstanding geographical and resource advantages, and has unique advantages in developing AI and cross-border computing power. Global tech giants place greater emphasis on security and stability in their investment strategies. Hainan is backed by the stable, secure, and continuously growing Chinese market, and this advantage is particularly evident at present.

In addition, Hainan, backed by the mainland and facing ASEAN, has the conditions to build a cross-border computing hub facing ASEAN. In addition to the preferential tax policies, Hainan has a full-service international communications import and export bureau, which explicitly supports the International Data Center in providing data services overseas in the form of legislation, and cancels the restrictions on the proportion of foreign shares in Internet data center business.

Meanwhile, land and ocean resources provide important conditions for domestic and foreign enterprises to lay out AI infrastructure. For example, Singapore has slowed down data center construction due to resource constraints such as electricity and land; Lingshui has built the world's first commercial underwater intelligent computing center, using seawater natural cooling technology to save more than 40% energy and achieve global leading energy consumption. After the commissioning of Units 3 and 4 of Changjiang Nuclear Power Phase II Project, the nuclear power generation is expected to account for 50% of the province's total, which will significantly enhance Hainan's independent power supply capacity and reduce electricity prices.

Building new advantages for AI development in Hainan Free Trade Port

The competition in the AI era is superficially a technological competition, but at a deeper level it is a competition of institutional supply capacity, factor allocation capacity, and governance capacity. The profound, systematic, and diverse nature of the new technological revolution represented by AI determines that no country or enterprise can monopolize all technologies. It can be said that openness is an important driving force for AI technology iteration and industrial development. Therefore, Hainan Free Trade Port has the conditions to form a new advantage in AI development in building the highest level of openness, and has the conditions to become a rule leading region for exploring AI development, transforming the advantage of openness into a standard advantage and governance advantage.

Openness is a prominent advantage for the development of an intelligent economy. In the past few years, the prominent features of the development of the digital economy have been "open source, cloud computing, and cross-border". Currently, this feature is even more prominent. At present, China's independently developed open-source AI models account for 17.1% of the total global downloads, surpassing the United States for the first time; It is expected that by 2029, over 50% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business development; At present, the overseas revenue of some AI companies in China accounts for over 90%. The Hainan Free Trade Port, which operates under island wide lockdown, has unique advantages in cross-border data flow, digital trade openness, and other fields, and has the basic conditions to connect with international high standard digital economic and trade rules. In this context, Hainan Free Trade Port, as the region with the highest level of openness in China, has the conditions to become a highland for AI development.

Promote the comprehensive implementation of open policies with a focus on cross-border data flow. For example, the continuous upgrading of AI big models has put forward an urgent need for the global configuration and efficient circulation of data elements. Hainan Free Trade Port should take the lead in exploring and forming safe and orderly cross-border data flow rules that are suitable for application scenarios. For example, according to Article 42 of the Hainan Free Trade Port Law, which proposes to support the exploration and implementation of regional international data cross-border flow system arrangements for the Hainan Free Trade Port, it is the first to connect with the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). For example, on the basis of implementing a minimalist "negative list" for data export in the existing five fields, it should be expanded to the entire field of service trade as soon as possible.

Establish a high-level open institutional arrangement in the era of AI. Release restrictions on telecommunications, Internet and other fields as soon as possible; Open up market access for intelligent technology application scenarios in key areas such as healthcare, commercial aerospace, tropical agriculture, and marine industries; Promote the market opening of talent, capital, technology and other factors under AI, achieve instant financial settlement and efficient talent flow in cross-border transactions such as large-scale model applications; Give full play to the role of the Hainan Free Trade Port Law, establish the "Hainan Free Trade Port AI Innovation Sandbox", clarify legal procedures, and encourage AI technology innovation in specific spaces.

Being the first to become an important hub for AI cooperation between China and ASEAN

ASEAN is becoming one of the most promising markets for global AI development. Relying on its open and geographical advantages, Hainan Free Trade Port has the conditions to become an important hub for AI cooperation between China and ASEAN. Anchoring an important open gateway and building Hainan Free Trade Port into a strategic hub for China ASEAN economic and trade cooperation can achieve significant breakthroughs in AI cooperation.

At present, China ASEAN AI cooperation has upgraded from infrastructure cooperation to ecological cooperation in industrial and supply chains. For example, by 2024, over 70% of the core hardware for AI server assembly plants in Malaysia and Vietnam will be imported from China; By 2025, 35% of China's AI overseas investment will be in ASEAN. In the future, Hainan Free Trade Port will play an important platform role in promoting the combination and integration of China's industrial advantages, technological advantages, ASEAN market advantages, and advantages of young digital consumer groups.

Hainan Free Trade Port can leverage its unique resource endowment, as well as the special policies and institutional advantages of free trade port construction, and strive to become an important hub for China ASEAN AI cooperation in the construction of the "two headquarters bases". Specifically, we can establish the China ASEAN Green Computing Cooperation Center, China ASEAN Data Processing Center, China ASEAN AI Technology Application Promotion Center, China ASEAN AI Cooperation Governance Center, and China ASEAN AI Capacity Building Center.

In addition, the integration of ports and harbors can also achieve the superposition of open advantages, industrial advantages, and resource advantages. Promoting AI cooperation in ports has enormous potential. For example, relying on the "zero tariff" policy of Hainan Free Trade Port, importing large-scale infrastructure with computing power, and cooperating to establish regional computing power centers; Relying on the special policy of data export from Hainan Free Trade Port, leveraging Guangdong's industrial advantages, and working together to expand the "data processing" market; Actively attract AI companies in Shenzhen and achieve integration with industries such as aerospace, deep-sea, and southern breeding at Hainan Free Trade Port. (The author is the President of China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute and the President of Hainan Free Trade Port Research Institute)