A drone photo taken on May 15, 2025 shows harvesters working at the “Tianfu granary“ core demonstration zone in Chongzhou, southwest China's Sichuan Province. A smart agriculture competition, running from May 15 to Sept. 30, pits six human farming teams against four AI-assisted groups across 1,000 mu (or 66.7 hectares) of prime Sichuan farmland. This modern-day duel between tradition and technology offers a window into China's quest for smart agriculture.(Xinhua)

　　CHENGDU, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Under the golden June sun, emerald rice paddies ripple across the “Tianfu granary“ core demonstration zone in Chongzhou, southwest China's Sichuan Province, where a high-stakes agricultural experiment unfolds.

　　As the second AI rice cultivation challenge goes on for three weeks, organizers find they constantly encounter a pivotal question: can machine learning outperform centuries of farming wisdom?

　　The competition, running from May 15 to Sept. 30, pits six human farming teams against four AI-assisted groups across 1,000 mu (or 66.7 hectares) of prime Sichuan farmland. This modern-day duel between tradition and technology offers a window into China's quest for smart agriculture.

　　In fields dotted with multispectral sensors and solar-powered monitoring poles, the AI teams employ a “sky-ground-space“ data network developed by the Institute of Urban Agriculture under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).

　　The system tracks crop health, soil conditions, and pest activity in real time, feeding information to cloud-based AI that generates planting strategies.