On the morning of April 17, the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference to introduce the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum. The 2024 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference will be held in Beijing from April 25 to 29. Co-sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the China Association for Science and Technology and the Beijing Municipality, the forum will hold nearly 120 activities with the theme of "Innovation: Building a Better World". More than 100 countries and regions, more than 150 foreign government departments and international organizations will be invited to participate in the forum, and hundreds of top experts and thousands of speakers will focus on topics such as scientific and technological innovation leading social progress, improving people's livelihood and sustainable development, discussing open innovation, seeking common development opportunities, and contributing wisdom and strength to building a better world.
The forum on open innovation and common development opportunities set up nearly 120 activities in 5 major sections
According to reports, national ministries and commissions, international organizations, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other provinces and cities hosted a total of 60 parallel forums. Focusing on the frontiers of science and technology, forums on basic research, artificial intelligence, and space science will be held; forums on future industries, engineering science and technology, state-owned enterprise discovery and invention, and ultra-high-definition audio-visual will be held around new productivity; forums on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Beijing-Hong Kong-Beijing-Macao, China-EU industrial cooperation, and global benchmarking incubators will be held around open ecology; innovation forums on women in science and technology, international youth, and overseas students will be held around scientific and technological talents; and forums on intellectual property protection, science and technology and rule of law, and data security governance will be held around science and technology governance.
This year, to further highlight the global, cutting-edge and effective, 30 activities will be held, including 6 key country matchmaking meetings such as the United Kingdom, Italy and South Korea, 4 national "debut" meetings for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and 8 "debut" meetings for high-tech products, bringing together more than 6,000 innovative projects in more than 40 countries and regions such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan, launching a list of 100 new technologies and new products and a list of 100 international technology trading projects, and continuing to create a technology trading event of "global buying and global selling".
On the afternoon of April 29, a special release event will be held to release a number of major original achievements, blockbuster innovation policies and the latest research reports to the world, and continue to build a "wind vane" of global cutting-edge technology and future industries.
In terms of cutting-edge competitions, 8 competition areas at home and abroad have been set up, and more than 3,100 entries from 75 countries and regions have been solicited in accordance with the principle of "global invitation and competition", covering many cutting-edge subdivisions such as quantum information, photonic computing, and metaverse. During the annual meeting of the forum, the finals will be held, and a mechanism of "continuous service and growth boost" will be established to provide all-round services such as investment and financing, space landing, and market docking for participating enterprises.
In addition, more than 20 supporting activities will be held, such as the "City Affairs" Innovation Festival, the Hard Science and Technology Carnival, and the Enterprise Theme Session, to disseminate the scientific spirit to the public, build a platform for scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. to exchange and cooperate, and create a "living room" that links global wisdom.
Linking global wisdom and building a communication platform The forum will release a number of the latest major scientific and technological achievements
Founded in 2007 with the permanent theme of "innovation and development", the Zhongguancun Forum has been successfully held for 14 sessions, and is an important exchange platform for the mainland to integrate into the global innovation network with an open attitude.
According to reports, this year's forum has three characteristics: First, it highlights cutting-edge exploration. A series of conferences and activities will be held focusing on artificial intelligence, life sciences, new materials and other cutting-edge fields of science and technology, and a number of latest major scientific and technological achievements will be released, demonstrating the leading role in cultivating new productivity and promoting global scientific and technological innovation. The second is to highlight the sharing of achievements. It will focus on the fields of people's livelihood science and technology such as carbon peak and carbon neutrality, medical health, and clean energy, and build a trading and sharing platform for more than 3,000 scientific and technological achievements from more than 40 countries and regions through activities such as the Zhongguancun International Technology Exchange Conference and the Zhongguancun International Science and Technology Frontier Competition. The third is to highlight openness and cooperation. This year's forum not only has an intergovernmental dialogue on science and technology cooperation, but also invites international science and technology organizations, scientists, innovative enterprises and investors to participate, link global wisdom, build an exchange platform, and inject new vitality into global science and technology cooperation.
The "Four Mores" highlight all-round and professional forums, adhere to high-end positioning, and strengthen national and internationalization
According to reports, since the preparation of the annual meeting of this forum, it has adhered to high-end positioning, strengthened national and internationalization, highlighted all-round and professionalism, and further improved the influence and leading force of the forum. It is mainly embodied in the "four more":
One is to be more open. Nineteen international organizations and foreign government departments hosted 17 parallel forums, among which UNESCO will host the International Forum on the Decade of Science, and the World Intellectual Property Organization will host two parallel forums, including global science and technology cluster innovation. It is expected that more than 100 countries and regions will participate in the event, of which more than 50% will be foreign speakers. For the first time, the Frontier Competition has set up 4 overseas competition areas, and international projects account for more than 40%. With the support of relevant ministries and commissions of the state, this year will provide foreign guests in need with services such as port visas and facilitation of remittance.
The second is to be more cutting-edge. In addition to the cutting-edge competition, in the parallel forums, results release and technology transactions, we will further carry out ideological collision and scientific and technological exchanges around 6G, brain-computer interface, blockchain, synthetic biology manufacturing and other cutting-edge fields of science and technology. In addition, April 27 this year will be the artificial intelligence theme day of the annual meeting of this forum, and will host 1 theme forum, 4 special forums and 7 special forums, all of which will focus on cutting-edge hot topics at home and abroad such as large models, embodied intelligence, and trusted AI.
The third is to pay more attention to practical results. Give full play to the role of the Zhongguancun Forum as a national platform, and use the "meeting" as a medium to attract talents, gather wisdom, and develop industry, throughout the whole process and all sections of the annual meeting of the forum. Through investment in forums such as the Beijing Conference, international cooperation in venture capital, unicorn enterprises, technology trading, cutting-edge competitions and other platforms, a number of technology products have been debuted, a number of major projects have been signed, and a number of innovative achievements have been transformed and implemented.
Fourth, a better experience. It further strengthened the science and technology conference, launched a non-inductive access conference navigation system, a humanoid bionic robot embedded with an AI large model, and AIGC products that can be experienced on site, and comprehensively upgraded the metaverse live broadcast venue to bring a new technological experience to the participants and the public.
In addition, more than 20 colleges and universities participated in the volunteer service of the forum, and volunteers will become a beautiful "landscape" of the annual meeting. (Reporter Zhao Lei)