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The China Association of Cultural Industries (中国文化产业协会), primarily through its Cultural Metaverse Professional Committee (文化元宇宙专业委员会), treats digital humans as a key interface for building a cultural metaverse that connects the physical and virtual worlds, a view set out in its jointly produced reports including the China Cultural Metaverse White Paper (中国文化元宇宙白皮书) and the Cultural Metaverse AIGC Development Research Report (中国文化元宇宙AIGC发展研究报告), released around mid-2023 with partners such as Tongji University and Tsinghua University. These reports frame digital humans as evolving across four tiers, moving from mere digital shells or puppets toward emotionally intelligent, personality-driven companions, with the fastest progress coming in three-dimensional reconstruction (such as light-array scanning) and intelligent generation (text-to-video and text-to-image). The association actively promotes deployment of digital humans in cultural heritage, tourism, and public cultural services, citing flagship cases such as the National Museum of China's first virtual digital human employee Ai Wenwen (艾雯雯), developed with Tencent for curation and guided interpretation, and regional cultural-IP digital humans like Huozhou, Shanxi's Lantern Shadow Digital Human (灯影数智人). Across its forums, white papers, and exhibitions through 2024 to 2026, the group consistently positions digital humans as both a marketing tool for livestreaming commerce and a transformative force turning traditional film and media into immersive, experiential cultural tourism.
The Cultural Metaverse Professional Committee (文化元宇宙专业委员会), formally the Cultural Metaverse Professional Committee of the China Association of Culture Industry (中国文化产业协会文化元宇宙专业委员会), is a specialized body within China's cultural sector established at the end of 2022 to guide the integration of metaverse and generative AI technologies into cultural production, with digital humans positioned as one of its central application areas. Its leadership is anchored by Zang Zhipeng (臧志彭), a tenured professor in the cultural industries department at Tongji University who serves as executive deputy director and executive deputy secretary-general, alongside deputy director Zhao Xing (赵星) of Fudan University. The committee co-organized the 2023 Chinese-Style Cultural Metaverse Frontier Forum (2023中国式文化元宇宙前沿论坛) with the School of Humanities at Tongji University and the Cultural and Creative Development Research Institute at Tsinghua University, and it compiled the China Cultural Metaverse AIGC Development Research Report (中国文化元宇宙AIGC发展研究报告), presented as the country's first dedicated report of its kind, in June 2023. Within the digital human domain its work concentrates on cultural tourism deployments such as virtual tour guides, AI interaction scenarios, and virtual anchors, and it serves as a convening and standard-shaping organization through initiatives including the National Metaverse 1000 Outstanding Products and Demonstration Cases program. Its activity has continued into 2026, including an April visit to Taicang (太仓) at the invitation of the local culture, sports, radio and tourism bureau to advise on digital human guides and AI interaction for cultural tourism, reflecting its ongoing role as a bridge between academic research, industry practice, and provincial cultural digitalization efforts involving virtual human technologies.