Assel Abakova, from Astana, Kazakhstan, works at an association focused on advancing AI in the country. She views data as the primary challenge in the AI era. To fuel innovation and nurture startups, she highlights the importance of digitizing existing data. For Assel, AI is not novel—it's already integrated into our phones, computers, and daily routines. Thus, she stresses that we shouldn't regard AI as detached or foreign.(By Liang Yan, Zou Junqi/ China Youth Daily)