Rosewood competition aims to build interest in the material

Artificial intelligence is expected to play a bigger role in upgrading traditional industries like rosewood manufacturing and driving rural vitalization, said industry experts.

They made the comments as a competition that leverages the use of AIGC, or AI-generated content, into the design of rosewood-related products kicked off in Dacheng county, Langfang of China's Hebei province recently. 

To differ from other competitions, the contest innovatively established an AIGC technology platform, and encouraged participants to leverage AIGC to explore innovations related to the county's pillar rosewood industry.

According to the organizing committee, more than 10,000 designers have shown interest in the competition. 

Dacheng county, known as the hometown of classic furniture of China, is home to over 500 rosewood enterprises, over 2,000 registered individual rosewood businesses and more than 4,000 rosewood handcraft workshops.

However, the market demand is declining. Data from the General Administration of Customs of China showed that the total import volume of hardwoods decreased by 28 percent year-on-year in the first half. The sector also saw a drop in average price. 

Facing the market decline, local government, enterprises and practitioners are finding new approaches to tackle challenges, such as the lack of innovative rosewood production design, younger practitioners and low production efficiency due to constraints in talent, technology and capital.

To solve such bottlenecks, Dacheng government initiated such a competition. Supported by Yijianzaowu, a tech company, the competition builds an AIGC platform. Users only need to upload a photo of a product made of other materials or input a description of the product, and then they can get a creative product concept image with the corresponding rosewood texture.

At the awarding ceremony that was held earlier this month, ambassadors from the countries of main rosewood-producing areas attended, all expressing their willingness to explore industrial innovation using new technologies.

In addition, this competition also renders possibilities in the industry cross-border cooperation. A cross-border trade exchange meeting for the rosewood industry was also held recently in the county to explore future possibilities of cross-border e-commerce of the rosewood industry.