New job offers related to AI foundation models have surged for 2023 fresh graduates in China, showing a year-on-year growth of 172.53 percent, according to a report issued by Chinese job-seeking website Liepin recently.

The number of college graduates in China in 2023 is expected to hit a record 11.58 million.

In the first quarter of 2023, the increase in demand for AI product managers, content operators, and natural language processing engineers exceeded 300 percent, showed data from Boss Zhipin, an online hiring and job-hunting platform.

AI-Generated Content (AIGC), which refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate content, is considered a new form of content production, including AI painting, AI writing, AI programming, etc.

Research by Boss Zhipin has found that since 2022, more than 80 percent of AIGC positions resulted from the internet industry. In 2023, however, there is a strong growth momentum for AIGC-related positions in the entertainment as well as pharmaceutical and medical industries.

At the same time, new professions have been created in AIGC-related areas, such as prompt engineer, 3D-AIGC algorithm engineer, ChatGPT optimizer, ChatGPT application engineer, and so on.

According to data from Liepin, average annual salaries for job positions related to intelligent manufacturing, AIGC and AI foundation models are the highest among fresh graduate recruitments, averaging 330,200 yuan ($46,379), 303,600 yuan, and 279,900 yuan per year, respectively.

Since 2022, these AIGC-related opportunities have been mainly in the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang Province taking the lead.

According to Boss Zhipin, jobs related to AIGC have high educational requirements, with over 80 percent of the positions requiring a bachelor's or master's degree. There is a significant increase in demand for PhD graduates specializing in AI foundation models, with year-on-year growth of 430 percent.

According to Liepin, the three areas that have seen the greatest application growth from 2023 college graduates are: intelligent manufacturing, AIGC and AI foundation models, with a year-on-year growth of 303.12 percent, 297.27 percent, and 235.25 percent, respectively.

Chen Dingding, founder of the Guangzhou-based think tank Intellisia Institute, is optimistic about this trend, as it means that more opportunities are being created for Chinese university students in the area of AI.

He believes that with the rapid development of AI technology and its widespread application, the demand for talents in this area is bound to increase, resulting in greater potential and advantages for Chinese university students.

(Cover: College students attend a job fair in Beijing, China, April 28, 2023. /CFP)