Machine intelligence reignites China’s century-old dream ‘to seek a continent’

AI is being used to clear underground traffic jams around Xinjiang as work takes place on a vast water supply system

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Underground in the Junggar Basin, northwest China, AI is being used to control traffic jams as heavy machinery work on an ambitious project first envisioned by Sun Yat-sen. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:00pm, 14 Jun 2024

In the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the vast expanse of desert in Junggar Basin, northwest China, traffic jams have been a persistent pain.

Over 20 tunnel-boring machines have been operating around the clock in this sparsely populated area, racing against an undisclosed deadline to complete an underground water supply system spanning nearly 1,000km (621 miles). Long queues of transport vehicles, laden with rubble and building materials, trail these colossal machines.

Traffic control in the tunnel construction site has traditionally rested entirely on human shoulders, allowing only one vehicle at a time within a given section. However, since April last year, this critical task has been gradually handed over to artificial intelligence (AI).

Now, the underground traffic flow has doubled, the average speed has increased by 10 per cent, and the likelihood of mishaps has diminished significantly.

“The next step will focus on obstacle recognition for moving vehicles and autonomous driving,” wrote the project team led by scientist Wang Liming with the China Railway Tunnel Group (CRTG), in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese academic journal Tunnel Construction in April.

As global warming takes effect, the arid northwest of China, especially Xinjiang, is increasingly turning lush.