BEIJING: “Mazu, protect our voyage on the deep,” go the lyrics of a timeless Chinese folk song that is a plea to the sea goddess Mazu. “Safe journey out, safe return ashore.”
Embedded in this song is the soulful bond between local fisherfolk and the sea goddess who, legend has it, was born on the shores of Meizhou Island in Putian, Fujian province.
Today, in the digital era, this ancient heritage has found a new, high-tech anchor.
On the island, which has 30 kilometers of coastline and is home to over 1,000 fishing boats, locals no longer rely on prayers to weather storms. Instead, they find safety at their fingertips through a smart app that instantly decodes real-time winds, wave heights and tidal patterns.
For Lin Haifang, a veteran mariner with a decade of island life under his belt, a simple app alert triggers his typhoon routine. He hauls up oyster shell strings, lashes down kelp rafts and steers his boat to shelter early. Even amid choppy seas and weak signals, the Beidou Navigation Satellite System beams alerts directly to his palm.
“It feels as if Mazu puts the sea conditions right in my hand,” he said of his early preparations, which keep his annual losses down and his income steady.
With the increasing frequency of extreme weather, the United Nations launched the Early Warnings for All initiative in 2022 to close gaps and protect everyone on the planet.
China became the first to answer the call, proposing an action plan in 2024 and launching an intelligent meteorological early warning solution in 2025 named MAZU — an acronym denoting Multi-hazard Alert, Zero-gap and Universal.
The system, deployed in seven countries, blends artificial intelligence forecasting models, data from Fengyun meteorological satellites, cloud computing and ground observations to deliver highly customized services.
President Xi Jinping announced on July 17 that China will bring the AI-powered meteorological warning system MAZU to 30 countries over the next five years to safeguard homes around the world.
He made the remarks while addressing the opening ceremony of the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai, calling for joint efforts to build a just and equitable global AI governance system.
“All countries should take a people-centered approach and develop AI for the positive and for good. We should ensure that AI is an important driver for shared prosperity and common security,” he said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
