Shanghai launched an award on Wednesday to honor projects involving new AI technologies and new application models that will "change future life."

Selections for the SAIL award, which stands for Superior, Applicative, Innovative and Leading, kicked off on Wednesday. The results will be announced during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, to be held in Shanghai next month.

A panel of AI experts from related academic research institutions, enterprises, and investment companies, as well as media from home and abroad, will recommend outstanding programs, which they believe will guide the development of future AI technologies or application models that will "change future life."

As the finals of the AI World Innovation Contest will also be organized during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, winning programs from that contest will also be on the candidate list for the SAIL award.

The AI World Innovation Contest, launched in June, has already attracted about 600 teams from home and abroad to compete for championships in human-machine interaction, unmanned driving, medical innovation and intelligent robots.

All the candidate programs for the SAIL award will be reviewed and voted on by an assessment committee in September, and the winners will be awarded at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference.

Zhang Ying, chief engineer of the Shanghai Economy and Informatization Commission, one of the organizers of the contest, said it was expected that the SAIL award could one day be as influential in the AI sector as the Oscars are in the film industry.