Feihe, who made his debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, how to endorse the "world's first AI dairy companies"
At the recently concluded China Dairy Industry Conference, high-quality development of the dairy industry became a major topic of discussion, which is also the key to the breakthrough development of China's dairy industry during the 15th Five Year Plan period. At that time, Feihe Chairman Leng Youbin shared his thoughts on the way to break through the situation in the dairy industry at the conference, stating that the Chinese dairy industry needs to fill the gap in innovation and make breakthroughs in innovation.
As soon as the words fell, Feihe made its debut as one of the "first AI dairy companies" at the 8th World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) from July 26th to July 29th. This is also the first time that a dairy company has participated in the WAIC conference since its establishment. At the conference, Feihe systematically showcased its full industry chain technology application from digitalization to digitization under the empowerment of AI, with the theme of "From Technological Leadership to Global First". Company executives also shared Feihe's experience on the topic of "AI+Dairy" on relevant forums.
Is AI a "multiple-choice question" or a "mandatory question" for the dairy industry? Let's take a look at Feihe's exploration results together.
What do flying cranes have?
Debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference
The flying crane is constantly working hard
The scorching summer has not diminished everyone's curiosity and enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. On July 26th, the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference opened in Shanghai, with crowds of people on site. As one of the top AI events in China, WAIC is often referred to as a barometer of the global AI industry, gathering "big shots" every year. This year's WAIC still gathers many top AI companies such as Google, Alibaba, Yushu, SenseTime, etc., focusing on the most cutting-edge issues of artificial intelligence and showcasing the highest level of AI technology and practical application achievements.
Unlike previous years, this year's WAIC welcomes dairy companies to participate for the first time. Among them, China Feihe, who has been the world's number one in infant formula for many years, showcased its AI landing application results on site, revitalizing the brand with cutting-edge technology and adding an extra layer of imagination to the slightly traditional dairy industry.
As one of the most data intensive industries in the fast-moving consumer goods industry, dairy products have a long business chain, from upstream pasture grass, dairy cows in farms, to factory milk powder and milk, and finally to consumers, generating massive amounts of data every day. And the data generated in each link is related to the operation of upstream and downstream. How AI can penetrate into it, achieve full link connectivity, integration, and collaboration, has become the key to its true implementation.
At Feihe's booth, cows wear their own "Apple Watch", and AI nutritionists engage in one-on-one nutrition knowledge quizzes with exhibition visitors. The "Crane Little" AI companion doll even provides emotional value to the other party These are not eye-catching "embroidered pillows", but rather the landing of Feihe's AI exploration in the ranch and consumer server scenarios.
Among them, after the cows wear smart collars, the ranch can achieve unmanned operation, and the milk production of the cows has also increased. AI maternal and child nutritionists not only have cute and friendly images, but also integrate the Volcano Engine big model, which can provide accurate answers and suggestions on baby's eating and physical condition, milk powder selection and ratio, and other issues, making services more efficient. As a fully equipped Deepseek physical intelligent companion doll, 'Crane Little' supports multilingual communication, enables fun interaction, learning guidance, and emotional companionship. It is not only a toy, but also a 'growth partner' for children.
Not only that, but even the entire on-site booth of Feihe is arranged around its full industry chain AI application, fully showcasing Feihe's achievements in empowering research and development, ranch production, factory production, supply chain management, and consumer services with AI.
At the same time, Feihe also exhibited products covering the entire life cycle of infant formula, children and adolescents, and adult nutrition. Among them, the most popular is its functional nutrition brand "Feihe Aiben", which focuses on adult health. In January of this year, Feihe Aiben launched its first AI functional nutritional supplement - Feihe Aiben Jumping Protein Nutritional Powder.
The reason why this protein powder is called AI functional nutritional supplement is because AI has deeply participated in its early research and development process and later consumer service, achieving precise implementation of nutrition. For example, in the research and development process, AI optimizes the product formula, creating a core ingredient called "small molecule milk protein" that contains over 1600 functional peptides, with higher activity and easier absorption. On the server side, Feihe Aiben has launched the first nutrition consultant that deeply integrates AI capabilities - Dr. Love, which can provide comprehensive nutrition and health services to consumers through intelligent Q&A, companionship, advice, and other methods.
Not only that, at this conference, Feihe Aiben also jointly established the "AI Precision Nutrition Alliance" with Huawei Cloud, Meinian Health, and others, to promote the application of AI technology in precision functional nutrition and big health industries. This means that in the future, AI will increasingly and accurately participate in the product system of Feihe Aiben, and with the help of AI, we will further advance and implement the "thousand person, thousand face" nutrition solution.
Why a flying crane?
Deep coupling of data, scenarios, and strategies
Feihe uses AI to define a new paradigm of intelligent dairy industry
Why does Feihe participate in the World Artificial Intelligence Conference?
In the venue, this was the most frequently mentioned question by the audience. As a manufacturing enterprise, the answer lies in the AI application of Feihe's entire industry chain. Feihe's goal for AI implementation is to truly participate in the decision-making process, not just provide suggestions, but accurately anchor scenarios, form intelligent driving, intelligent execution, and intelligent closed-loop, ultimately empowering to ensure absolute product quality control and improve service quality.
However, integrating digitalization into the entire dairy industry chain and linking each link and scenario in a point, line, and surface manner is not an easy task for a traditional dairy enterprise with an annual revenue of over 20 billion and business coverage in the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. To achieve all of this, it is inseparable from the dairy giant's decades long continuous investment in digitalization.
According to the Vice President of China Feihe at the "AI Numerical Calculation: Refactoring the Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Chain Ecology" forum, Feihe's intelligent development has gone through the early stage of digitalization, the mid-term intelligent pilot, and then the comprehensive promotion of digitalization. Among them, the digitalization process in the early stage lasted for 5 years, with a cumulative investment of over 1 billion yuan. From 2023 to 2024, Feihe mainly piloted and implemented multiple AI sub projects in production and marketing.
Starting from 2025, Feihe will enter the stage of comprehensive digitization, requiring global planning and comprehensive implementation. As one of the first AI dairy companies in the world, Feihe has integrated artificial intelligence technology into the entire industry chain through the "AI capability platform+full scenario digital system", forming a closed-loop innovation from farm management to consumer services.
In terms of ranch management, Feihe's 13 self owned ranches implement "refined management" of cows. Through the comprehensive deployment of SCR systems, it is like putting a "smart watch" on the cows. The cow collars collect real-time data on movement, body temperature, rumination, etc., combined with AI algorithms to predict health risks. In terms of diet, the feed for Feihe's own farm comes from Feihe's million acre farm, with a daily meal standard of over 100 yuan per cow. Using an AI based precision feeding system, the feed nutrition ratio is dynamically adjusted. The meticulous management of the ranch results in the freshness and safety of Feihe's milk source. The main indicators of Feihe's raw milk are protein content ≥ 3.4% and colony index ≤ 5000, which is 20 times higher than the EU standard.
In terms of research and development, in order to make milk powder infinitely close to the natural nutrition of breast milk, Feihe will take the lead in the 14th Five Year National Key Research and Development Plan in 2022, leading the formation of the "Breast Milk Research National Team" and developing the world's first independent breast milk intelligent computing engine, analyzing the dynamic laws and multidimensional interaction mechanisms of massive breast milk components, and ultimately restoring the "natural intelligence" contained in breast milk, promoting the transformation of infant nutrition from "ingredient imitation" to "functional replication".
On the production end, Feihe has developed an intelligent production system. Among them, Feihe's "Thousand Eye System" achieves millisecond level online monitoring and quality traceability of the entire milk powder production process, which is actually the first of its kind in the world. Intelligent devices spread throughout the production line scan 20-30 times per second, monitoring up to 200 micro indicators in real time. At the same time, Feihe has built a digital twin factory that can simulate equipment operation and optimize production processes through AI algorithms, achieving precise adjustment of equipment parameters and fully automatic operation. With the management of world-class factories, Feihe has achieved a record of 63 years of zero safety accidents, and has also provided products with more quality, freshness, and nutrition guarantees under the empowerment of AI.
In addition, in supply chain management, Feihe has also achieved end-to-end intelligent collaboration through AI. In the Feihe Intelligent Logistics Center, algorithms empower AI command scheduling to efficiently operate the "AGV Land Wolf Car", achieving an automation rate of over 90% in the warehouse and a 40% increase in supply chain efficiency. The product delivery cycle has been reduced from 10-15 days to 7-10 days. With strong intelligent scheduling, Feihe has achieved an astonishing speed of delivering raw milk from the ranch to the factory in less than two hours, with the final product delivered to consumers in as fast as 28 days.
Not for AI's sake, AI,
Feihe takes root in technological innovation
Assist in the high-quality development of China's dairy industry
The successful exploration of Feihe in AI applications is, to some extent, the accumulation and development of "long-distance runners". From the early stage of informatization, to digitization, and then to digitization and AI, Feihe has always been at the forefront of the trend, which is essentially due to Feihe's profound insight into technology driven industrial change and its pioneering strategic vision.
However, the high-quality development of the dairy industry solely relies on digitization, which is far from enough. What it needs is systematic innovation that covers the entire industry chain, and digitization is just one part of it. At the just concluded China Dairy Industry Conference, several dairy industry leaders, including Leng Youbin, repeatedly mentioned innovation and the need to break through through innovation when discussing the way for China's dairy industry to break through. The conference has also repeatedly mentioned the need to strengthen the "deep processing of dairy products" to overcome current development bottlenecks, among which technological innovation and category restructuring have become the core drivers of deep processing transformation.
Faced with the demand for consumer upgrading and the pressure of industry transformation, leading dairy companies including Feihe should take the lead in empowering deep processing of dairy products through technological innovation, creating high value-added products, optimizing products and industrial structure, and promoting China's dairy industry to break through development difficulties.
In order to promote the deep processing of dairy products and optimize product structure, Feihe insists on continuous investment in research on breast milk, brain development, and fresh extraction technology of milk protein. Some research results have been implemented, which helps Feihe's layout in product deep processing and full life cycle products.
In terms of breast milk research, Feihe is one of the earliest enterprises in China to initiate breast milk research, establishing the largest Chinese breast milk database and accurately quantifying nutrients such as DHA and osteopontin. The Chinese ratio of DHA to ARA has been developed to be 1:1.7, which has been fully applied to Feihe infant formula products and provides scientific support for formula design. Not only that, Feihe has also taken the lead in building China's largest maternal and child health queue, providing a solid data foundation for further decoding Chinese breast milk.
In terms of brain development research, Feihe will launch the "Brain Strategy" in 2023, collaborating with more than 20 top universities and research institutions worldwide to conduct in-depth research on brain development and brain nutrition, and accelerate the application of products.
Thanks to a series of technological accumulations and patent layouts, Feihe has achieved "firsts" in multiple segmented fields. For example, it took 6 years and invested nearly 100 million yuan to establish China's first lactoferrin production line, breaking the monopoly of foreign countries on lactoferrin production technology and mastering the independent production capacity and pricing power of lactoferrin. In January of this year, Feihe released the "Fresh Milk Protein Extraction Technology", which covers three core technologies: fresh active low-temperature separation, chromatographic ultrafiltration, and directed enzymatic hydrolysis, leading the industry into a new era of "fresh milk protein".
It is precisely through its excellent research and development and craftsmanship that Feihe's products have been recognized by the national and even global markets, ranking first in sales in China for six consecutive years and first in global sales for four consecutive years in the infant formula powder market. Moreover, Feihe has taken the lead in proposing the concept of the entire lifecycle, sparking another round of nutrition revolution, which is bound to further deepen the value chain of the dairy industry. With the support of AI and the entire innovation system, Feihe is expected to become a leader in all age nutrition solutions, providing global consumers with more precise and refined nutritional products.
Returning to AI, from multiple-choice questions to mandatory questions, Feihe always demonstrates its ultimate understanding and relentless pursuit of "technology serving people" from the essence of consumer concern, and brings more imaginative space to the future development of China's dairy industry with the excellent model of "the world's first AI dairy enterprise".