Meet Wukong, the AI Chatbot China Has Installed on Its Space Station

The latest addition to China's Tiangong space station is an AI chatbot with expertise in navigation and tactical planning. Named Wukong AI--after the protagonist of the "Monkey King" legend in Chinese mythology, Sun Wukong--the chatbot was introduced on the space station in mid-July, and has already completed its first mission: supporting three taikonauts during a spacewalk. Information about Wukong AI remains limited. Chinese authorities have said that they developed it from a domestic open-source AI model; according to Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, engineers designed it to meet the requirements of manned space missions, and focused its knowledge-base on aerospace flight data. "This system can provide rapid and effective information support for complex operations and fault handling by crew members, improving work efficiency, in-orbit psychological support, and coordination between space and ground teams," Zou Pengfei of the taikonaut training center, told Xinhua.