On August 10, 2025, the establishment conference of the shield/TBM big data mining community and the launch conference of the vertical large model in the field of tunnel and underground space, guided by China Railway Group, hosted by China Railway Tunnel Bureau, and organized by the National Key Laboratory of Tunnel Boring Machine and Intelligent Operation and Maintenance, was successfully held in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Huang Chao, member of the Standing Committee and Vice President of China Railway Group, Cao Guijin, Second level Inspector of Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, and Zhang Donghui, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Zhengzhou High tech Zone, attended the meeting and delivered speeches. More than 400 expert representatives from the Science and Technology Department, Industry and Information Technology Department, Zhengzhou High tech Zone, as well as universities, enterprises, institutions, and social organizations of Henan Province gathered together to witness the important milestone moment of digital transformation in China's tunnel construction field.

At this meeting, China Railway Tunnel Bureau, in collaboration with industry peers and relying on tunnel boring machines and the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Operation and Maintenance, jointly initiated the establishment of a shield tunneling/TBM big data mining community. This initiative has opened up a new model for industry data co creation, co construction, and sharing. The community adheres to the principles of "openness, inclusiveness, mutual assistance, and voluntary participation", gathering the strength of the entire industry chain of "construction survey design construction equipment operation and maintenance", aiming to solve the problems of data silos, inconsistent standards, and insufficient collaboration in the industry. Its core tasks mainly include three aspects: first, jointly building a data base, constructing an industry unified data center, formulating data standards, and promoting data sharing throughout the entire chain; The second is collaborative technology research and development, jointly tackling the core algorithms of shield tunneling/TBM, providing empowerment for the entire life cycle of design, construction, and operation; The third is to promote the deep integration of industry, academia, and research, accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and cultivate new quality productivity through the linkage of "industry academia research industry application".

At the meeting, the release of "Pioneer Tunnel Large Model v1.0" received a lot of attention, marking the official birth of China's first vertical large model in the field of tunnels and underground spaces. This big model is based on 773 engineering lines and 120 billion construction data from the shield tunneling/TBM engineering big data center, and constructs a vertical domain big model technology system driven by small models for general big model scheduling. It forms a new form of digital intelligence mutual feedback empowerment technology system that runs through the entire life cycle scenarios of tunnels and underground spaces+AI. At the same time, we have developed the Tunnel Hero AI assistant for deep exploration of human-computer interaction, and built a new engine for industry science popularization, professional Q&A, industry standards, text translation, special plans, and construction assistance functions. In addition, by breaking through the alignment and fine-tuning techniques of large models, a series of knowledge and data scenario driven small and medium-sized models have been developed, forming multiple new paradigms for intelligent decision-making in tunnel design BIM visualization, tunnel construction evaluation, tunnel equipment selection, tunnel operation and maintenance perception and interpretation.

At present, the model has been verified in the plateau railway tunnel, Chongtai Yangtze River tunnel, Shenjiang the Pearl River Estuary railway tunnel and other projects, effectively helping the tunnel construction to achieve the goal of safety, quality, efficiency and green, and playing a positive role in promoting the transformation and upgrading of digital intelligence in the industry. Editor/Wang Xia