BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Beijing will launch the evaluation of the newly created artificial intelligence (AI) professional titles in early 2021 to meet the city's growing demands for AI skills, local authorities said on Friday.

Professional titles of AI majors will go into the engineering technology title series and consist of four levels, according to the municipal human resources and social security bureau.

All applicants, classified as engineers and technicians who engaged in the R&D of AI algorithm technology as well as system design and applications, will be divided into two categories of AI research and AI application.

The evaluation will take place annually based on their representative works, including invention patents, technical and research reports, professional papers, and monographs, the bureau said.

The scale of China's core AI industry had hit 51 billion yuan (about 7.7 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2019, with the number of AI enterprises exceeding 2,600.