BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's state news agency Xinhua announced Tuesday that it will further integrate Artificial Intelligence into its news production to build a high-tech newsroom in the near future.

Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency, said Xinhua will build a new kind of newsroom based on information technology and featuring human-machine collaboration. The project is expected to greatly improve efficiency.

Cai made the remarks at a work conference that maps out Xinhua's key tasks for 2018.

On Dec. 26, Xinhua officially released the "Media Brain", a first-of-its-kind platform in China that brings cloud computing, the Internet of Things, Big Data and AI technology into news production. Cai said Xinhua will explore how the "Media Brain" can fit into the daily workings of modern journalism.

Proposed applications for the "Media Brain" include every stage of news production, from finding leads, to news gathering, editing, distribution and finally feedback analysis.

Xinhua News Agency was established on Nov. 7, 1931 as the Red China News Agency and changed to its current name in 1937. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Xinhua became the state news agency.

In a congratulatory letter on the 85th anniversary of its founding in November 2016, President Xi Jinping called on Xinhua to accelerate its development into a "new type of first-class global news agency."

Today, Xinhua operates 32 domestic branches and 180 overseas bureaus worldwide, reaching people in over 200 countries and regions.