Forum brings together global tech innovators

Event’s wide-ranging sessions highlight industry’s latest achievements, trends

The 2023 Zhongguancun Forum opened in Beijing on Thursday with the theme of “Open Cooperation for a Shared Future”. The six-day event features more than 150 activities including conferences, exhibitions, announcements of research developments, technology trading and competitions in cutting-edge fields.

The forum’s 55 parallel sessions bring together experts and innovators to discuss a diverse range of topics in frontier realms, such as artificial intelligence, life sciences and clean energy, as well as hot topics including data governance, women in scientific and technological innovation and digital sports.

This year’s forum will highlight its characteristics as a State-level, cutting-edge and international event, Yu Yingjie, vice-mayor of Beijing, said at a recent news conference.

Three new hosts have been added this year: the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. Of the 55 parallel sessions, 25 are hosted or co-hosted by national ministries or commissions, accounting for 45 percent of the total.

The forum focuses on cutting-edge fields like AI, quantum science and brain-computer interfaces. It explores trends in sci-tech innovation, showcases the latest achievements and hosts roadshows to identify disruptive technologies that will shape the future of sci-tech innovation and industrial development.

Guests from more than 80 countries and regions are attending the forum, with upward of 40 percent of the nearly 120 keynote speakers hailing from foreign countries, Yu said.

At the opening of the forum on Thursday, 10 major sci-tech achievements were released. They include an evaluation report on the construction of Beijing into an international scitech innovation center, progress and achievements in Zhongguancun’s pioneering reforms, new-generation 256-core blockchain dedicated acceleration chips, and a new-generation quantum computing cloud platform.

Wu Zhaohui, vice-minister of science and technology, said 13 parallel sessions are co-hosted by international organizations. Notably, there has been an increase in the number of representatives from international companies and organizations, as well as world-renowned politicians, industry experts, scholars and researchers attending the forum.

At the 2023 Invest Beijing Global Summit on Friday, which was for the first time held during the Zhongguancun Forum, 39 major projects were signed, involving a combined value of 60.8 billion yuan ($8.63 billion).

Wu said that the Zhongguancun Forum aims to develop into an international summit for science and technology exchanges, where major policies can be promoted, high-end talents can congregate and communicate, important achievements can be showcased and cutting-edge ideas can be exchanged.

As an essential part of the forum, the 2023 ZGC International Technology Trade Fair features significant international involvement. According to Yu, the fair has scheduled 26 activities, with over 7,000 technological achievements and innovation projects from 40 countries and regions seeking collaboration.

Established in 2020, the ZGC International Technology Trade Fair aims to promote global technology commercialization and project implementation.

“The Zhongguancun Forum serves as a signal amplifier, allowing our boron neutron capture therapy technology to gain attention from various sectors of society,” said Ma Chuangxin, general manager of Guangdong province-based high-tech company Casbnct, who expressed his appreciation for the benefits of continuous participation in the fair.

This year’s forum features a conference on technology transfer and development for world-class colleges and universities. Representatives from prestigious institutions such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Oxford are among the invited attendees.

The Zhongguancun Forum has held 13 sessions since its inception in 2007. According to Wu, Zhongguancun was the first national demonstration zone for independent innovation and has become a symbol of China’s innovation-driven development. The forum is an important platform for China’s participation in global scitech innovation and governance. It has contributed significantly to the construction of the Beijing International Center for Science and Technology Innovation, high-quality development and closer sci-tech cooperation, Wu noted.