While Shanghai strives to become an international hub for artificial intelligence, the city should better leverage the emerging technology to further integrate services with manufacturing and consumption scenarios to nurture more growth engines, experts and executives from the world's leading multinational companies said.

The comments were made during the 38th meeting of the International Business Leaders' Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai held on Oct 11. Initiated in 1989, the IBLAC has grown into a think tank for Shanghai mayors by soliciting suggestions from top executives of multinationals and industry experts to better advance Shanghai's development and opening-up at the annual event. A total of 42 multinational executives from 14 countries attended this year's edition.

Shanghai has a unique advantage to better leverage technology thanks to its strong industrial base, its close ties with the rest of the Yangtze River Delta region and a mature service industry, Mohamed Kande, global chairman of PwC, said.

New possibilities have been opened up for intelligent mechanics, smart manufacturing, warehousing and transportation amid the global AI boom. To better ride the tide, Shanghai should make more efforts to connect technologies, research and capital with international service providers so that difficulties in the real economy can be truly addressed, he said.

Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital and former chairman of IBLAC, said that Shanghai is becoming a testing ground for global AI governance and the intelligent transformation of the services sector.

For the global service sector, AI has seen its role transitioning from an efficiency tool to a "value-chain restructurer". Shanghai should thus further align with international rules, facilitate data flow, open up more application scenarios, build up a more talent-friendly ecosystem and seek international coordination to make it a global innovation hub for AI-empowered services, he suggested.

Applauding Shanghai's strong manufacturing foundation as well as a rich pool of AI companies, professional service providers, multinational companies and long-term capital, Zhang Lei, founder and chairman of Hillhouse Investment, said that the city should attach greater importance to the real deployment of AI.

More key scenarios that affect companies' operations should be opened up. Shanghai should also cultivate a group of forward-deployed engineers, who are highly sought after in the AI industry, and professional service enterprises that understand both AI and industries. In this way, more AI applications and service capabilities successfully tested in the Chinese market can go global from Shanghai, he said.

According to Gary S. Guthart, executive chair of the board of directors at Intuitive Surgical, combining high-quality medical data with AI and robotics can create new frontiers in medical care. Shanghai has unique advantages for such transformation by piloting the development of high-quality datasets for robot-assisted surgeries, experimenting with new approaches for secure medical data sharing, and building a "Shanghai model" for the responsible use of medical data that can be replicated nationwide.

Jean-Paul Agon, chairman of beauty giant L'Oreal Group, believed that AI is key to seeking high-quality growth by reshaping the value chain, empowering talents, and renovating commercial paradigms. The new technology can provide consumers with tailor-made products by connecting the online and offline shopping experiences. Manufacturing will become more sustainable as AI will make it more flexible and customized.

While technology should be more inclusive to pave the way for wider economic prosperity, Shanghai should further improve its business ecosystem to make it a hub connecting various innovation rules across the globe, he said.

Ahead of the meeting, multinational executives visited Fuxing Island on Oct 10 to see firsthand Shanghai's latest achievements in AI-powered services and creative urban development. Several multinational companies expressed their willingness to continue investing in the city and share in its growth opportunities.