Beijing, Oct. 19 (Xinhua News Agency) - Title: Opening-up and cooperation for jointly building “future scenarios” - the 2019 ZGC Forum feels the pulse of global innovation

Reporters of the Xinhua News Agency: Gai Boming, Hu Zhe and Xia Ke

Ideas are surging at the forum and the future can be touched in the exhibition hall... From Oct. 16 to 18, the 2019 ZGC Forum was held in Beijing. Scientists, entrepreneurs and investors from 50 countries and regions including the United States, Canada and Germany, etc. discussed together the future trend of global science and technology and the development opportunities of emerging industries. 167 scientific and technological achievements of 116 organizations were showcased at the exhibition. The worldwide debut of a series of cutting-edge technologies opened the door to the future for mankind.

Cutting-edge technology “embrace” future industries

As one of the important activities of the ZGC Forum, Zhongguancun international exhibition for cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements is brilliant and huge and showcases a galaxy of fine works, opening a tech tour for the audience to experience advanced technologies and feel the charm of innovation.

Ultra-high speed light-curing 3D printers, small reusable liquid-fueled carrier rockets, grapheme carbon nanotube solid-state flexible batteries… These cutting-edge technologies that seem to be out of reach are creating new social scenarios and generating emerging formats to “bring” the future closer.

Zhai Lixin, Director of the Administrative Committee of Zhongguancun Science Park, introduced that the displayed projects are the latest international achievements and represent the leading level of the industry, and many of the achievements came out of the lab and into the public for the first time.

In the exhibition area, a magic “carpet” attracted many visitors to stop and watch. Rubbing the hands on it, the LED lights connected to the carpet would light up. According to the staff, this product is developed based on the basic principle of “electrification by friction”, which can collect the energy that “slips away” in daily life and put it in storage. Developed by the High-tech Innovation Center of Engineering Science and Emerging Technologies of Peking University, the “intelligent dynamic below-knee prosthesis” can independently identify human movement intentions and intelligently adjust joint angle, damping and power. What’s more, this artificial limb weighs only 1.7kg. It is the lightest intelligent artificial limb among world similar products.

“Artificial intelligence is regarded as a cross-domain original technology with super-energy-level significance and is very popular in the research and application of medical treatment and health. It greatly improves the production efficiency.” Fang Laiying, Vice President of Chinese Hospital Association, said that in recent years, some science-and-technology enterprises such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, iFlytek, etc. have all applied artificial intelligence in the healthcare field.

In the future, agricultural ecology will be reconstructed through the cross-discipline and multi-discipline superposition. Wei Lingling, Researcher of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Chairman of AgriGarden, shared her “artificial light plant factory”: LED light source, water and fertilizer cultivation facilities, autonomous robots, environmental control system and Internet of things, etc. are integrated into one system. Sensors and image identification, etc. are applied in the equipment and robots are used for cultivation and harvesting. Under such an environment, acres of lettuces grow freely.

Based on the artificial intelligence management platform, factories of artificial light plants distributed nationwide can be managed. “In December last year, the national tropical agricultural park in Hainan Province was commercialized for the first time, and now it has been put into production,” said Wei Lingling.

Ride on the momentum to “ignite” the main engine of science and technology innovation

The man who can see the trend is smart. The man who not only knows the trend but goes with it is wise. The 2019 ZGC Forum contains the trend of innovation Experts attending the conference believed that we should seize the commanding heights of global innovation and constantly inject new momentum into social development.

- “Hard technology” leads the future

Artificial intelligence and information technology, life science and biotechnology, intelligent manufacturing and high-end equipment, new materials and new energy… A number of cutting-edge technologies are becoming the driving force for the development of future industries, which are also the important targets for experts and scholars in various fields to focus on, and more importantly, the “battleground” for investors.

At Zhongguancun international exhibition for cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements, some cutting-edge “hard technologies” such as 5G and future network, deep learning and computing, biometric features recognition, gene detection and treatment, stem cells and molecular biology, third-generation semiconductor and nano materials, etc. attracted much attention. These fields are becoming the future development direction of key industries.

“Hard technology” becomes the “base color” of innovation Mi Lei, founding partner of Casstar, believed that “hard science and technology” is like “bone”, real economy is “muscle”, virtual economy is “fat” and finance is “blood”. Sustainable development cannot be achieved without “hard technology”.

- Cross-border integration releases “cohesion”

Tian Wei, President of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, introduced that the hospital cooperated with Beihang University and Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. to develop the third-generation domestic orthopedic surgery robot “Phegda”, which, integrated with bone surgery, navigation, robot, etc., is the world-first universal orthopedic navigation robot that can be used in body parts such as spine, pelvis, limbs, etc., With the precision of 0.8mm, it reduces more than 70% of the radiation in operation and improves the operation efficiency of more than 20%.

“Innovation today must be combined innovation and cross-border integration.” Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics, believed that software and hardware are inseparable, and interdisciplinary and cross-domain innovation can accurately solve problems in reality.

Guo Guangsheng, President of Beijing Academy of Science and Technology, believed that under the trend of R&D globalization, enterprises increasingly need a highly integrated R&D system to promote the cross-penetration and integration of new technologies and emerging industries, thus forming a new mode of development by industry convergence.

- Talent driving effects are more prominent

“Basic subjects are playing an increasingly important role in the training of technological innovation talent. China’s need for international excellent talent and world-leading universities has never been more urgent,” said Xue Qikun, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Vice President of Tsinghua University.

As a result, China is recruiting talent around the world. In recent years, entrepreneurs, experts and scholars from the United States, Britain, etc. have become China’s foreign academicians. In national independent innovation demonstration zones such as Zhongguancun in Beijing and Zhangjiang in Shanghai, etc., a large number of foreign scientific and technological workers have taken an active part in innovation and entrepreneurship. During the forum, 3 foreign academicians including Alexander Rejkov from the Ukrainian Academy of Ship Science signed contracts to settle in Haidian Park of Zhongguancun Science Park.

Gather the wisdom of the world to create the future of mankind

Establishment of innovation center for overseas academicians, joint efforts on key technologies by Chinese and foreign enterprises, Chinese entrepreneurship team for serving the international market… A series of cases of international cooperation at 2019 ZGC Forum send a powerful message: scientific and technological innovation needs international cooperation, and only openness and innovation can let us join hands to build our common future.

From participating in global industry division to global innovation division, China is becoming a fertile land for innovation, breeding the exciting and heartwarming scientific and technological achievements.

“Xiaoice” is an AI “slash youth” born in Microsoft China. As the underlying system of a series of cutting-edge technologies, it can write poems, songs and even write financial reports and design clothes.

Zhang Shuo, Director of Communication and Public Affairs of Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group, introduced that Microsoft’s practice in China proves that China, Beijing and Zhongguancun can do world-class basic and applied researches and become the highland of global innovation.

“At present, China’s ‘Xiaoice’ has gone global and is used in many countries, covering 660 million online users, 450 million third-party smart devices and 900 million viewers,” said Zhang Shuo.

Zhang Chengqi, Vice President of University of Technology Sydney, said that the international cooperation in science and technology is very important. The market in China is characterized with scene, capital and data. Many countries seek cooperation with China and China needs their support, so China needs to open the door to attract more intellectual resources.

For example, Hans Uszkoreit, academician of the Academy of Europe, came to China to “start a business” by establishing an artificial intelligence research institute and building an innovation ecosystem in robot vision recognition and language translation, etc. together with Chinese enterprises.

And more and more domestic innovators and entrepreneurs set their sights on the international market. Wu Bin, a “post-90s” entrepreneur, is combining artificial intelligence with fashion industry. After getting the financing of hundred million yuan, he will cooperate with international e-commerce platforms to promote the application of artificial intelligence. Guo Guangsheng said that globalization has become a major trend of scientific and technological innovation.

“China is adopting a very open attitude and actively carrying out scientific and technological cooperation and exchanges with other countries to jointly build a better world,” said Edward Moser who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. (Interview and writing by Yang Na, Chen Xu and Song Meili)