By Ardak, People’s Daily

Horgos, situated within the Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture of China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, stands as a pivotal gateway for China’s westward opening-up. 

Once a key staging post along ancient trade routes where camel bells echoed across the Gobi Desert,  today the city has become a vibrant business magnet, drawing investors and entrepreneurs from Central Asia and Europe. 

For an increasing number of foreign businesspeople, Horgos is no longer just a destination for trade trips — it  has become a second home they keep returning to.

As dawn approaches, cross-border trucks queue efficiently at the Horgos highway port, navigating customs procedures.

Kazakh businessman Ilyas, with 14 years of experience in the Horgos fruit and vegetable trade, has witnessed this transformation firsthand. 

Fresh produce trade depends heavily on swift clearance; delays lead to significant losses as perishable goods spoil quickly. Previously, Ilyas would arrive before daybreak just to secure precious delivery time.

To address sluggish customs procedures and high spoilage rates for fresh agricultural products, Horgos Customs established a China-Kazakhstan “green channel” for agricultural products, offering priority inspections and immediate release upon arrival. 

The new arrangements have created a fresh rhythm for cross-border produce trade: goods picked in the morning can clear customs the same day and reach markets that very night, allowing high-quality Chinese agricultural products to reach overseas consumers while still fresh.

Recent years have seen new energy vehicle (NEV) exports emerge as a major growth driver for Horgos trade. Recognising the strong demand for Chinese electric vehicles across Central Asia, Kazakh businessman Khambati seized the opportunity, registered a company in Horgos, and entered the vehicle export logistics business.

To facilitate NEV exports, Horgos Customs introduced a fast-track clearance scheme for self-driven export commercial vehicles, significantly streamlining offline procedures and moving the entire process online. 

The average customs processing time has been reduced from more than 30 hours to less than five. Standardized workflows, intelligent services and around-the-clock operational support have made Khambati’s logistics operations highly predictable and significantly improved delivery efficiency.

Horgos has also pioneered a new multilingual cross-border livestreaming business model, the first of its kind in Xinjiang. The local government provides free exclusive live-stream venues, builds professional livestream bases, and runs regular training courses for new streamers, offering hands-on guidance on product sourcing and account operation.

Today, over 20 livestreaming studios in the commercial building of the China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center stay busy with nonstop broadcasts, selling Chinese cosmetics, clothing and daily necessities to consumers in Central Asia and Europe.

Kazakh livestreamer Alten Asenbek moved into the Horgos cross-border e-commerce livestreaming base last December. Starting with barely any orders, he has now built a social media following of over 26,000, with peak hourly sales hitting 14,500 yuan (about $2,134).

At the Dastarkhan restaurant inside the Center, visiting merchants and local residents often gather around tables to chat. 

Locals fondly call this little diner the “Sisters Restaurant.”It is a successful cross-border business jointly founded by Kazakh entrepreneur Toktabayeva Almira Sansiba and her Chinese partner Guli.

Recently, thanks to supportive policies, more than 80 percent of the restaurants, retail stores and accommodation providers inside the cooperation center have completed upgrades to their point-of-sale terminals. The new system supports dual-currency settlement in Chinese yuan and Kazakh tenge, and accepts international credit cards alongside mainstream domestic and overseas mobile payment methods.

 “The process is fast and secure,” Sansiba explained. “Customers simply scan a code to pay. Tenge amounts are automatically converted, and yuan funds arrive directly in our accounts.”

Booming business has turned Horgos into her second home. “I’ve made friends from all over the world. Diners stay for tea and long conversations after meals, just like family. We are no longer mere travelers; we have become part of one big family.”

Beyond creating a business-friendly environment, Horgos has continued to improve public services for foreign residents by leveraging talent policies associated with the pilot free trade zone and its broader opening-up initiatives.

In January last year, Uzbek businessman Bekzati relocated his family to Horgos to start a local business. Unfamiliar with both the language and local policies, he became deeply worried about finding schools for his three children. Community staff proactively reached out and eventually helped resolve his children’s schooling issue.

Catering to the large flow of foreign truck drivers and merchants passing through the port, the Yingtar community in the Horgos Industrial Park subdistrict has launched regular consultation sessions for international residents, targeting and addressing  their practical concerns.

With maturing public services and attentive, inclusive governance, Horgos is becoming a place that overseas merchants not only want to visit, but are also eager to return to, and, for many, a place they now call home.

By Qin Ruijie, People’s Daily

In Yinchuan, capital of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region, a group of seventh graders from Ningxia No. 15 Middle School have developed a smart bird-repelling system to protect goji berry fields. 

The system automatically detects birds approaching the fields and plays pre-recorded raptor calls to deter them. Powered by AI image recognition, it protects crops without harming wildlife.

This is exactly one example of the school’s efforts to build a distinctive curriculum that integrates general education with AI.

“Several companies have already contacted us about turning the students’ idea into a real product,” said Xie Wei, principal of the school. He summarized the school’s goals in simple terms: “We want to lighten teachers’ workloads and give our students more room to grow.”

The transformation brought by smart education can be felt throughout the campus.

For Chinese teacher Bao Ling, lesson preparation used to be a time-consuming process. “I used to spend several evenings preparing audio and video materials for a single class,” she recalled.

Now, she routinely uses AI tools to turn textbook content into animated lessons. While teaching the essay Pear Blossoms Along the Post Road, she transformed the text into an immersive visual experience, with pear blossoms blooming across the screen and the story unfolding in vivid detail.

“A single video can help students grasp the entire text,” Bao said. “Students are more engaged and spend more time looking up and participating, while lesson preparation has become much more efficient.”

AI has also made literature feel more personal. Through AI-generated characters, students can “talk” with famous Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Lao She, turning authors into interactive companions rather than distant historical figures.

The changes are equally evident outside the classroom.

For English teacher Ma Yan, oral practice used to be a major challenge. With classes of 50 or 60 students, it was impossible to give everyone enough speaking time during lessons. Homework assignments that required reading aloud often left some students as little more than “silent spectators.”

Now, students record their speaking exercises simultaneously on tablets, and an AI system provides instant evaluations. The system can identify whether pronunciation is accurate, whether intonation is natural, and even whether vowel sounds are being swallowed.

“AI has also greatly accelerated grading,” Ma explained. “After assignments are submitted, the system first identifies common problems, allowing teachers to focus on individual difficulties. It’s like having several teaching assistants in the classroom.”

Across the campus, a dynamic learning-profile system continuously tracks students’ academic progress and pinpoints their weaknesses.

“For example, if a student performs well on reading comprehension but struggles with grammar questions, the system automatically creates a targeted learning group and recommends customized exercises,” Xie said.

Seventh grader Wang Yinuo knows firsthand how much of a difference this can make. He used to avoid speaking English because he lacked confidence in his pronunciation. Today, the intelligent scoring and annotation system on his tablet has changed that.

“Now I’m willing to speak, and I actually enjoy it,” he said.

In a makerspace classroom, Wang demonstrated a smart-home system he designed himself, which can control lights and curtains through voice commands.

“I think learning isn’t just about passing exams,” he said. “It’s about using technology to create something new.”

Yinchuan’s journey toward smart education began years ago. 

In 2018, the education department of Ningxia Hui autonomous region invested 10 million yuan ($1.47 million) and designated Ningxia No. 15 Middle School as a regional model school for an internet-assisted education initiative. Since then, the school has established 17 smart classrooms and equipped students with more than 900 learning devices.

Today, the school has achieved interconnection between the Smart Education of China platform, Ningxia’s smart education platform and its school-based platform. Teachers can access lesson preparation, classroom teaching and teaching research services with a single account.

The platform not only brings together high-quality educational resources from across the autonomous region but also hosts more than 6,000 QR codes linked to key knowledge points, allowing students to learn independently with just one scan.

The digital transformation extends well beyond a single school. Across Ningxia, internet access now reaches 100 percent of schools. Ningxia’s smart education platform has more than 1.6 million registered users and updates over 25 million pieces of high-quality teaching resources every year, covering all educational stages and subjects. The platform supports the entire educational process, from content creation and learning assistance to assessment, monitoring, and management, through cloud-based services.

“Technology must be applied smartly and flexibly to meet each student’s personalized needs,” Xie noted. “At its core, education aims to sustain long-term development. Sound educational practices will light up classrooms far and wide.”

By Li Rui, People’s Daily

As summer planting begins in Ningjin county in Dezhou, east China’s Shandong province, fields hum with activity — but beneath this timeless agrarian rhythm lies a technological revolution transforming irrigation, crop management, and cultivation practices.

For Ye Jitao, director of a farming cooperative in Hupizhangxi village, the shift has been radical. “Irrigation was once a logistical nightmare,” he recalled beside a new pipeline. “Several households had to share a single well, and we often waited three or four days just for one round of irrigation. Watering land could cost a lot in electricity alone.”

“Now the government has built a pipeline network that delivers water from the Yellow River directly to our fields. We simply turn on the irrigation system and the water starts flowing. There’s no waiting and no competition for water anymore.”

Located at the tail end of Dezhou’s Yellow River irrigation system, Ningjin has long struggled with water shortages and the overexploitation of groundwater, problems that once severely constrained agricultural development.

To tackle these challenges, the county has undertaken a major water conservancy project, dredging 114 kilometers of key waterways, building or upgrading 14 culverts and pumping stations, constructing 12 water storage ponds, and increasing the region’s river water storage capacity by 5 million cubic meters. The improvements have significantly strengthened the area’s irrigation capacity.

But having enough water is only part of the solution; using it efficiently is equally important.

At the Yicang planting cooperative in Ningjin’s Shiji township, farmer Wang Yuchi no longer needs to spend hours standing by the fields during irrigation. With a smartphone, he can check real-time data on soil moisture levels and water usage.

In the past, he had to stay beside the fields during irrigation, worried about wasting even a drop of water. But now he can control everything with his phone.

Traditional flood irrigation has given way to drip irrigation and integrated water-and-fertilizer management, enabling farmers to use resources with far greater precision.

The shift from “competing for water” to “precise water management” in Ningjin reflects a broader transformation taking place across Shandong, where technology is redefining field management.

In Wuzhuang village of Kenli subdistrict, Dongying, Shandong province 107 hectares of wheat fields are now lush and green. Few would guess that just four years ago, the area was severely salinized farmland with an average salt content of 16 parts per thousand, where almost nothing could grow.

The turnaround has been driven by a locally developed technology known as the “enclosed dual-layer subsurface drainage system.”

The method involves vertically installing plastic barriers to prevent saline water from seeping into the area while laying two underground drainage pipes: the upper layer flushes salt from the soil, and the lower layer blocks the upward movement of saline groundwater. The result is a solution that, according to local experts, can prevent the return of salinity for as long as 50 years after a single treatment.

Within one to two years of applying the technology, soil salinity dropped from 16 to 3 parts per thousand, the pH level returned to near-neutral conditions, and corn yields reached as high as 600 kilograms per mu, turning once-barren land into productive farmland.

Technology is also changing everyday farm management.

In a field in Linshu county, Linyi, Shandong, plant-protection drones fly low over the crops, evenly spraying water and nutrients onto wheat seedlings.

“In the past, fertilizing and irrigation were based largely on experience,” said Yu Leyi, a 45-year-old grain grower from Diantou township. “Now, with just a tap on my phone, I can see temperature, humidity, and crop conditions in real time. Precision management just makes it easier and more efficient.”

This transformation stems from the county’s smart agriculture monitoring system.

Since last year, Linshu has established 200 field monitoring stations throughout the county to collect real-time data on soil moisture, temperature, humidity, wind conditions, and other key agricultural indicators. The data are uploaded to a smart agriculture big-data platform that provides farmers and agricultural service providers with precise decision-making support.

“In the past, checking soil moisture meant going out to the fields, and fertilization required repeated inspections to get it right,” said Wan Lei, a farm machinery operator with a local agricultural cooperative, as he conducted aerial crop protection operations with a drone.

Using the mobile platform, he can clearly monitor drone flight paths, soil data, and crop growth. Precision fertilization and scientific irrigation have become standard practice. “And the efficiency is remarkable,” he said. “A single drone can cover between 53 and 67 hectares in one day.”

Similar scenes can be found in an unmanned smart farm in Wali village, Anjiazhuang township, Tai’an of Shandong province.

There, technician Wang Xinwen used a tablet computer to control a robotic pesticide-spraying machine.

“Once you set the route, it moves on its own,” he explained. “The screen shows soil moisture levels and even insect damage on the leaves, and it is easy to adjust the spraying angle.”

According to Chen Guoqing, an associate professor at Shandong Agricultural University, the robot uses centimeter-level navigation powered by the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, while a digital management platform processes image data in real time.

The robot delivers a 95 percent targeting precision for pesticide application and cuts chemical usage by 40 percent. It can easily cover over 13 hectares per day, boasting efficiency 10 times higher than experienced farm workers.

“If farmers choose to rent this type of robot, operating costs can be reduced by 60 percent per hectare and labor costs by 40 percent,” Chen said.

“Each unit is sold at around 20,000 yuan. Our goal is to develop affordable, reliable, and accessible intelligent farm machinery that ordinary farmers can actually use,” he added.

From labor-intensive farming to smart agriculture, a technology-driven transformation is unfolding across the fields of Shandong, fundamentally changing the way farmers cultivate the land.