China's Zhongguancun Forum to focus on AI development and renewed international cooperation amid ChatGPT frenzy
The Zhongguancun Forum, a state-backed annual tech event held in Beijing's answer to Silicon Valley, will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and international cooperation, government officials said on Monday.
The six-day conference, to kick off on May 25 in the Zhongguancun area in Beijing's Haidian district, comes at a time when OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT has placed AI under the spotlight as China's tech rivalry with the United States ramps up.
The forum, which has a theme of "Open Cooperation for a Shared Future", will focus on the "frontiers of science and technology development, specifically AI, quantum science and brain-computer interfaces", according to Beijing vice mayor Yu Yingjie, who spoke at a media briefing on Monday.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Yu added that the event will "deepen [China's] international openness and cooperation", with guests from nearly 200 foreign governments and organisations across more than 80 countries and regions expected to attend. The number of foreign speakers will account for more than 40 per cent of the total, he said.
The event's more than 650 exhibitors include German industrial technology giant Siemens and healthcare company Merck Sharp & Dohme, widely knowns as MSD, among 120 other foreign exhibitors, according to Yu.
"China's openness to science and technology cooperation can only widen further," said China's vice-minister of science and technology Wu Zhaohui at the Monday press conference.
The comments echoed an address delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Zhongguancun Forum in 2021, when he said that China would take a "more open attitude" and take part in "global innovation networks".
Wu said that China would continue to make it easier for foreign tech talent to work in the country.
The Zhongguancun Forum, held annually since 2007 by eight government agencies and its affiliates including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has traditionally been used by Beijing to promote technology exchanges.
However, increased tech tensions between Washington and Beijing over issues such as AI and semiconductor development have cast a shadow over the event in recent years.
Many Chinese tech companies, such as telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co, have been sanctioned by the US over national security concerns. Last October, the US Commerce Department expanded the scope of its export control rules to further restrict the access of Chinese chip makers to advanced chip-making tools, software and talent.
The Joe Biden administration is currently considering further restrictions on American investment in Chinese AI companies and other sensitive technologies, according to a Fox News report last week.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
