By JAMES ALEXANDER YILING WANG

Chongqing-  (INP) -- The opening ceremony of the 2020 Smart China Expo Online and Summit took place on September 15th with the main venue in Southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality and the sub-venue in Singapore. While the majority of exhibits are available for the public worldwide to view online due to the global pandemic, two pavilions within Lijia Intelligent Park are hosting small scale offline exhibitions for guests of the event to attend.

The 2020 Smart China Expo Online combined online and offline forms and used Cross Reality (XR) and other technologies to create the visual experience of personally on the scene.

Chen Min’er, Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee, delivered a speech on how the pandemic has accelerated development in the digital economy.

‘At present, the development of the digital economy in the city has entered the fast lane in the transformation of traditional industries. In this period of epidemic prevention and control, intelligent applications have been used widely for unmanned distribution, remote diagnosis, treatment, and online education, which have allowed us to feel the infinite vitality and prospects of innovation in big data intelligent.’

‘We should unswervingly follow the road of optimization and upgrades in the real economy, promote vigorous development in the digital economy, and strive to write a new chapter of high-quality development and life in Chongqing.’

Liu Zhenmin, United Nations Under-Secretary-General addressed via video, saying, ‘Enriching life has grown into a premier international forum for dialogue and cooperation in the broad filed of SMART technologies. On the behalf of the United Nations, I congratulate the Expo organizers for highlighting International engagement and fostering cooperation and partnership between governments and industries.’

Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Home Affairs, Singapore, described the level of cooperation with Chongqing.

‘Singapore and Chongqing have a shared commitment to be at the forefront of digital connectivity. In fact, this is a key pillar of the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative, which is China and Singapore’s third government-to-government flagship project. Our collaboration has enabled Singapore’s attendance at the SCE Online today to be streamed live through the CCI international dedicated connectivity.’

‘I am glad that we have strong participation of around 30 Singapore companies at the SCE online E-exhibition, with 17 memorandums of understanding to be signed between them and their partners.’

In a speech delivered by Wang Zhijun, the vice minister of Industry and Information Technology of China, he stated ways to accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence and the real economy.

‘We will encourage foreign enterprises and research institutions to actively participate in key scientific research projects, jointly build open innovation platforms to jointly promote artificial intelligence technology in benefit the world.’

He added, ‘ We welcome global intelligent enterprises to invest in China, share the world’s largest consumer and technology application market.’

Tang Liangzhi, deputy secretary of the Chongqing  Municipal Party Committee and mayor of Chongqing, presided over the opening ceremony where he reiterated the principle focus behind the alternate format behind the Smart China Expo this year.

‘Based on the theme of Smart Technology: Empowering Economy, Enriching Life, the innovative concept behind the exhibition has broken past the limitations of time, space, and geographical location. It will present the latest achievements in global smart development through the integration of sub venues, online and offline platforms, plus real and virtual experiences.’

Following the opening ceremony, industry representatives and experts took the stage in a variety of forms. While most guests delivered speeches either live on stage, or through pre-recorded videos.

Nobel Prize laureate Kostya Novoselov delivered a unique keynote presentation by means of holographic projection, where he described his present focus of research into intelligent textiles, including an anti-virus coating that kills viruses through programmable responses. He concluded, ‘ we really believe that our smart, adaptive, intelligent materials would find their use in many areas from smart cities, robotics, artificial intelligence, progressive health care, water treatment, and telecommunication.’

Jack Ma, co-chairman of the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, emphasized how the pandemic has not only presented difficult challenges but has also brought great opportunity.

‘Among all the uncertainty of today, the trend towards digitization has not changed. While digitalization once made life easier for businesses, it is now the key to their survival. The process of digitization which may have taken 30 to 50 years to complete, has likely been shortened to 10 or 20 years.’

‘Industry now has the opportunity to combine research and development with digital technology to reduce the cost of promotion, sales channels, labor, and management. While the traditional industry has the opportunity to be driven by technology, the epidemic has transformed technology originally reserved for emergencies into daily life.’

Robin Li, chairman, and CEO of the Baidu group announced that the Western Autonomous Driving Open Test Base in Yongchuan District of Chongqing would be officially opened during the 2020 Smart China Expo Online.  “So far, it has become the test and demonstration base with the richest application scenarios and the largest scale of autonomous vehicles in the western region,” said Li. Last year, Yongchuan District and Baidu reached a cooperation agreement on the base. Moreover, the L4 self-driving minibus jointly developed by Baidu and King Long is also scheduled to make its world premiere in Yongchuan Chongqing on September 17.  This means that the first self-driving bus line in the west will soon be put into operation.

Other high profile guests included 2017 Turing Award winner David Patterson,  and Lu Yong, CEO of Huawei China Region.

The final stage of the event was a series of product releases headed by hi-tech educational resources developer IFLYTEK, which released intelligent software that can analyze student performance to identify weaknesses in a variety of subjects, and design courses suited directly to their needs.

Among other major smart product releases including the first HP computer with chips manufactured in China.

Intel announced the company’s largest FPGA innovation center in the world, while Chang’an Ford released the news they will start mass production of the first car model equipped with the function of vehicle-road coordination.