Xinhuanet
- Chinese name
- 新华网
- Pinyin
- Registered name
- 新华网股份有限公司
- Unified Social Credit Code
91110000710927126Kregistered in Beijing 北京- Stock code
SSE:603888Shanghai Stock Exchange 上海证券交易所
- Website
- 2810373291
XinhuaNet (新华网股份有限公司), the online platform of China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, has emerged as a prominent actor in the development, deployment, and normalization of digital humans within China’s digital media and governance ecosystem. Its approach to digital humans operates across three interconnected dimensions: the in-house production of AI avatars for news and cultural programming, the integration of digital human services into public governance and civic life, and the promotion of AI-powered virtual beings as symbols of national technological progress and innovation.
XinhuaNet has developed proprietary hyper-realistic digital humans, most notably “Xiaozhu,” who debuted in June 2022. Xiaozhu is positioned not simply as a news anchor but as a “digital cultural officer,” capable of reciting classical poetry, explaining traditional customs, and acting as an immersive educational interface. These digital humans are deployed across livestreams, cultural short videos, and nationally themed content such as programming around the 24 solar terms, reinforcing traditional values through contemporary AI-driven storytelling while maintaining the authority, consistency, and controllability required of official communication.
Beyond media production, XinhuaNet is embedding digital humans directly into public infrastructure and governance scenarios. Use cases include digital human instructors in school-level “thought and politics” education, AI-powered livestream environments for public policy explanation and Q&A, and service-oriented avatars operating in government service centers and financial institutions. These deployments align with broader national objectives around smart governance and AI-mediated citizen engagement, marking a shift from experimental digital media formats toward operational public service systems that provide informational, interactive, and affective support in real time.
Much of its recent digital-human work is in culture and tourism. In October 2024 its Shanxi branch, with the Wuxiang county government, opened a digital experience hall on Eighth Route Army history in Wuxiang, Shanxi, with an AI digital guide visitors can talk to. In December 2024, at a listed-companies forum in Jinjiang, it launched a “culture and tourism recommender 2.0” programme and, with the Beijing firm Beijing Tuijie Huamei Culture Technology (北京推介华美文化科技), signed seven museums and scenic areas to an AI tour-companion digital-human project, as the Jinjiang government reported. In July 2026 it won the Mishan (密山) government’s city-walk AI tour-companion service contract in a public procurement.
These efforts are supported by Xinhua Zhiyun (新华智云科技有限公司), the organization’s AI and cloud computing subsidiary, which develops platforms capable of generating digital humans from photographs or speech inputs for rapid deployment. Zhiyun’s technologies serve both internal editorial workflows and external partnerships, enabling scalable creation of customized digital humans for applications spanning commerce, education, and governance. In parallel, XinhuaNet actively promotes its digital human technologies as replicable industry models, emphasizing their capacity to reduce production costs, increase audience engagement, and preserve ideological coherence within AI-mediated communication.