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SCIO briefing on the preparatory work for the World Internet Conference · Internet Development Forum

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Red Star News:

My questions are, how have you selected which world-leading internet, science, and technology achievements to highlight at this year's conference? And how is the global internet competition "Straight to Wuzhen" going? Thank you.

Zhu Guoxian:

As an important part of the World Internet Conference, the global internet competition "Straight to Wuzhen" is a year-long international event that focuses on the digital economy. The 2020 event, based on its inaugural edition last year, has continued to solicit ideas from around the world, looking to projects representing new technologies, new models, and new business forms in the field of digital economy. By attracting the participation of many unicorn companies, to-be-listed companies, "black technology" companies, and capital both online and offline, the competition has become an important platform for matching digital economic resources and has further stimulated the innovation vitality of the World Internet Conference.

Comprising an online preliminary round, an intermediary round, a semi-final, and a final, the event received participation applications from over 1,000 projects across 15 countries and regions this year. Over 800 of the projects then qualified for the preliminary online round. After the round, nearly 100 projects were selected for the intermediary round, which consisted of five intermediary competitions in China focused on the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Yangtze Economic Belt, as well as three overseas intermediary competitions held online in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. In addition, there was a special competition category for digital technologies used for preventing and controlling COVID-19. Altogether, 27 projects, 18 from China and nine from overseas, made it into the semi-final, where they were further ranked by a panel of industry and investment experts who presented their marks through on-the-spot project reviews, as well a panel of advisors who voted online. Ten of the 27 projects made it into the final.

The 10 projects cover a wide range of fields, including integrated circuitry, life sciences, information security, and flexible manufacturing and smart fishing, and epitomize innovation and entrepreneurship trends in the digital transformation of industries and the industrial transformation of digital technologies both in China and the world. The projects depict a new path for the future development of the digital economy. The type of technology involved can be divided into three main types: key and core technologies, digital technologies that empower traditional industries, and frontier technological innovations.

The final will be held during the World Internet Conference · Internet Development Forum. I hope that friends from the media will continue to pay attention to the competition and bear witness to new driving forces of internet entrepreneurship and innovation. Thank you.

Zhao Zeliang:

I would like to add something about this year's release of the world-leading Internet scientific and technological achievements. The release is always an important part of the annual World Internet Conference (WIC). Despite the impact of COVID-19 this year, the quantity and quality of the filed achievements have increased and improved. By now, we have collected more than 300 achievements around the world. This year's activity features the following characteristics.

First, it laid great emphasis on application. Focusing on the five application fields of industrial recovery and coordinated development, digital social governance, global public crisis response, artificial intelligence and cloud life, and green digital public welfare practice, the activity explored global Internet innovative products and key technologies regarded as capable of promoting development and benefiting humanity.

Second, it laid emphasis on representativeness. Among this year's collection, there were achievements from centrally-administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as CETC, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, from famous Chinese IT and Internet enterprises such as Huawei, Alibaba Group and Tencent, and also from renowned international enterprises including Microsoft and Kaspersky.

Third, it laid emphasis on technology and innovation value. This year's collection covered various categories including quantum computing, satellite-based Internet, artificial intelligence, high-end chips, 5G network architecture and applications, as well as various application scenarios such as smart city, intelligent transportation, telemedicine and online education.

In accordance with the principles of "fairness, impartiality, objectivity and authority", the Recommendation Committee for World Internet Leading Scientific and Technological Achievements was established. Wan Gang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC, chairman of the Central Committee of the China Zhi Gong Party and president of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), acts as honorary president. Leading Internet experts from China and Germany act as respective directors, so as to guarantee the authority and impartiality during the process of recommendation and evaluation. As for the final result, I'm looking forward to it as much as you are. Let's meet in Wuzhen. Thank you.