(Yicai Global) April 6 -- Chinese cemetery operators used new technologies in memorials to the dead and offered digital funerals and interment services to bereaved families on and around the annual Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, which was yesterday.

Anxian Yuan China Holdings, a company that develops cemeteries, used artificial intelligence and voice cloning technologies to recreate images of deceased individuals in memorial services held by families over Qingming.

The tech development unit of Fu Shou Yuan International Group, a major funeral operator that digitalizes cemeteries and offers virtual memorial temples, used OpenAI's ChatGPT to create digital representations of the deceased, with a smart dialog function to be added in the future, according to President Yu Hao.

“Advances in digital technologies make it possible for the dead to 'come back to life' in the virtual world,” Yu noted. The firm's cloud-based memorial platform had an average of 7,860 active users last month, with daily users exceeding that nukber yesterday, Yu added.

The market’s acceptance of the technology will decide if the funeral industry can develop in the metaverse, an insider said.

The recreation procedure costs about CNY50,000 (USD7,268) per deceased person, with higher prices depending on what options are chosen, according to the China Funeral Association.

Cemetery developers and operators spend at least CNY300,000 to create digital products.

Editor: Martin Kadiev