Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
October 26, 2026
NISCO, Huawei Deploy World's First Swarm Intelligence Steel Model
TLDR
- NISCO and Huawei deployed the world's first swarm-intelligence steel model, cutting annual costs by over CNY100 million and shortening R&D cycles by 50%.
- The YuanYe model combines multiple AI models with metallurgical mechanisms, using real-time data from millions of sensors to enable precise control across ironmaking, steelmaking, rolling, and inspection.
- NISCO's AI transformation aims to empower workers by automating repetitive tasks, freeing them to focus on creative, high-value work and improving workplace safety and efficiency.
- NISCO's YuanYe model predicts blast furnace temperatures two hours in advance with over 90% accuracy, turning reactive operations into proactive control.
Impact - Why it Matters
This deployment signals a pivotal shift in heavy industry, where AI moves from experimental pilots to core production, delivering tangible gains in safety, efficiency, and sustainability. For the steel sector—often challenged by volatile costs and strict environmental regulations—the YuanYe model demonstrates that swarm intelligence can optimize complex, high-stakes processes in real time, from blast furnace control to emissions management. The reported 50% reduction in R&D cycles and over CNY100 million in annual savings illustrate how AI can simultaneously boost competitiveness and cut costs. Moreover, by empowering frontline workers with low-code tools and AI agents, NISCO showcases an inclusive approach that augments human expertise rather than replacing it. As the global steel industry seeks to decarbonize and digitalize, this scalable benchmark offers a roadmap for others to follow, potentially accelerating the adoption of AI-native architectures across manufacturing. The collaboration with Huawei also underscores the growing role of tech giants in industrial transformation, setting the stage for dedicated AI data centers tailored to heavy industry.
Summary
Nanjing Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (NISCO), in collaboration with Huawei and ecosystem partners, has commercially deployed the world's first steel model powered by swarm intelligence—the YuanYe Steel Large Model (YuanYe)—across multiple scenarios at scale. The announcement, made via Media OutReach Newswire, highlights how NISCO is transforming its core operations from experience-based to data- and intelligence-driven. By adopting industry-leading products including Ascend, Kunpeng, Huawei Cloud Stack, and Pangu models, NISCO has embedded AI into every core stage of production—ironmaking, steelmaking, rolling, and quality inspection—to forge green, high-end AI-powered super steel plants.
Unlike general-purpose monolithic models, YuanYe fuses multiple AI models with metallurgical mechanism models to create a dual-drive, multi-model cluster architecture featuring a "right brain" for probabilistic computing and a "left brain" for precise decision-making. Powered by massive sensing data from millions of operational technology (OT) data points across 26 business domains, NISCO has achieved real-time digital twin mapping in its intelligent operations center. As a result, 100% of key equipment is connected and digitally controlled, new product R&D cycles have been shortened by 50%, and annual costs have been reduced by over CNY100 million (approx. US$15 million). By October 2026, NISCO had launched 25 business agents covering visual quality inspection, process optimization, production scheduling, and operations management.
Breakthroughs span four core scenarios. In ironmaking, AI makes blast furnaces transparent, predicting temperatures and identifying issues two hours in advance with over 90% accuracy, increasing prime-grade molten iron yield by over 10% and cutting unit energy consumption. In rolling, the rolling-force prediction model achieves millisecond-level response, narrowing thickness tolerance to ±0.2 mm and reducing steel thickness deviation to 1.9%, while the rolling-force hit rate jumps from 88% to 98%, supporting annual output of over 2.5 million tons of steel plates. In quality inspection, an integrated smart metallographic inspection system has achieved full-process automation, raising inspection accuracy to over 95% and shortening per-sample inspection time from 10 minutes to 3–5 minutes—an 80% increase in overall efficiency. In energy and environmental control, the S-Link Intelligent Agent for Gas and Flue Gas Sulfur Control integrates 602 process parameters to issue sulfur-risk warnings one hour in advance with over 95% accuracy, slashing natural gas co-firing consumption by nearly 50%, reducing downtime by over 25%, and delivering more than CNY600,000 (approx. US$90,000) in annual economic benefits.
Li Jinyan, General Manager of the Digital and Intelligent Integrated Development Department and Director of the AI Research Institute at NISCO, emphasized that digital and intelligent transformation is human-centric: "Its purpose is not to replace people, but to unleash human potential." To date, NISCO has deployed over 300 AI models and more than 1,000 low-code agents built by frontline employees. Cheng Yongfu, Senior Industrial Solution Expert at Huawei's Steel & Non-ferrous BU, noted that the real value of industrial AI is realized when it expands from single-point applications to comprehensive integration with production, operations, and management. Looking ahead, NISCO and Huawei plan to explore dedicated data centers for smart steel plants, centered on an AI-native three-tier architecture and powered by YuanYe, to provide a replicable benchmark for the global steel and manufacturing industries.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content distributed by Media Outreach. Read the original source here, NISCO, Huawei Deploy World's First Swarm Intelligence Steel Model
