SHIJIAZHUANG, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than 500 Chinese and foreign companies have been confirmed to join the China International Digital Economy Expo in Shijiazhuang, capital of northern China's Hebei Province. According to the provincial government, nearly 200 special guests, over 150 industry leaders and 80 experts from more than 20 countries and international organizations will take part in the expo taking place from Oct. 11 to 13. Approved by the State Council, China's cabinet, the expo will be hosted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Hebei provincial government annually in Shijiazhuang starting in 2019. Among the participants, over 180, such as Siemens, Amazon, Dassault, Huawei and Baidu, are leading digital economy companies in their respective fields. The expo will have five exhibition areas covering 50,000 square meters, featuring Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, new generation of information technology, intelligent manufacturing and smart society. A dozen parallel activities will be organized surrounding hot issues such as the Xiongan New Area, 5G technology, industrial Internet, AI, big data and cloud computing, the organizer said.