A delegation of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) programme visited Zhijiang Laboratory on 2 September to explore collaboration on advancing AI for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Guided by the principles of open science and open data, and grounded in AI for Science, the two sides discussed joint efforts to advance AI-DRR frontier theory, applied tools, and capacity building — serving global needs, especially in countries and regions with the highest disaster risk and weakest technical resources.

Established in September 2017 in Zhejiang Province, China, Zhijiang Laboratory is a major science and technology innovation platform focused on intelligent computing. Jointly built by the Zhejiang Provincial Government, Zhejiang University, and Alibaba Group, the Lab pursues five core research directions: intelligent sensing, artificial intelligence, intelligent computing, intelligent networks, and intelligent systems. It has built a new-type computing center capable of training large models with trillions of parameters and is among China's first national open innovation platforms for next-generation AI public computing power.

During the visit, the two sides reached preliminary consensus on three potential collaboration areas:

• Open Science Computing Platform and Research Ecosystem Support. 

• Joint R&D and Model Engineering.

• Youth Empowerment and Global South Capacity Building. 

The IRDR delegation expressed strong appreciation for Zhijiang Lab's intelligent computing infrastructure and open science practices. The visit laid the groundwork for a formal cooperation framework between the two parties.