People visit a section of information technology at the 9th China Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)
BEIJING, Sept.9 (Xinhua) -- The World Digital Economy Conference 2020 & the 10th Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo is to be held from September 10 to 13 in Ningbo City of east China's Zhejiang Province.
Themed on "digital drive, intelligent development", the event aims at bolstering the development of digital economy and smart cities through a series of activities including sessions, exhibitions, project contract signing, new product release, etc.
-- Highlights of the event
During the event, one main forum, 11 thematic sub-forums and one high-level expert consultation meeting will be held, gathering a large number of domestic and foreign authoritative experts and scholars as well as senior entrepreneurs to exchange ideas on the development of digital economy and smart city construction.
Experts and scholars from institutions like the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University, as well as senior executives from NetEase, Huawei, China Unicom and other technology companies will contribute wisdom on 5G technology, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, intelligent manufacturing, industrial internet, smart governance, smart livelihood, digital epidemic prevention and other fields.
Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will be held both online and offline. It will launch the Cloud Smart City Expo, holding cloud forums, cloud exhibitions, cloud experience, cloud release and other key activities to boost all-round and in-depth exchanges and cooperation on digital economy and smart cities.
One main forum and 10 thematic sub-forums will be presented through live broadcast or video on demand. Well-known IT enterprises from home and abroad, leading enterprises in digital economy and key characteristic enterprises from Ningbo and Zhejiang will participate in the online exhibition.
In terms of cloud experience, a voice broadcast application has been set up to link the offline exhibition experience. Besides, Ningbo's smart application construction achievements will be displayed through micro-video, micro-application and other forms, helping the general public experience the intelligent life.
The contract signing results as well as a batch of key theoretical and practical results, typical cases, and lists will be released online. A total of 10 new product launch events will be held through live broadcast to release a batch of new products, technologies and achievements.
As for offline exhibition, four pavilions concerning respectively digital economy, intelligent manufacturing, smart cities and digital technology are set up.
Nearly 300 domestic and foreign digital economy enterprises (institutions) like China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Huawei and Tencent will participate in the offline exhibition, bringing the most advanced technologies and products in the fields of digital economy and smart cities.
Four competitions will be held to integrate talents, technology, capital, market and other factors of innovation and entrepreneurship, and boost innovative development of industries.
A signing ceremony of major projects will also be held to promote high-quality industrial cooperation in digital economy. It's estimated that 50 major projects will be signed during the event with a total investment of 33.6 billion yuan, both hitting a record high.
The event will also for the first time set up the experience day to encourage more people to fully participate in and experience the development of the digital economy and the achievements in building smart cities.
-- Results of past events
Founded in 2011, the Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo has been held for nine sessions in Ningbo, and it has already become an important international platform for exhibitions, exchanges and cooperation in the fields of smart cities and intelligent economy, with fruitful results yielded.
For each session, four to five pavilions were set up covering an exhibition area of 20,000 to 30,000 square meters, attracting 300 to 400 exhibitors on average, including renowned enterprises like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, IBM and Microsoft, to showcase the most cutting-edge technologies, products and applications in smart cities and digital economy.
Over the past nine sessions, a total of 97 thematic forums were held, and more than 500 experts, scholars and entrepreneurs, including Nobel laureates, had delivered keynote speeches and shared related experience at the event. Over 46,000 people had participated in the various forums and meetings.
Besides, 272 major projects were signed during the events with the total investment exceeding 130 billion yuan, covering software, integrated circuits, intelligent manufacturing, smart city, 5G and other key digital economy areas.
During each expo, multiple industry meetings, innovation and entrepreneurship competitions were held to build platforms for enterprises in precise cooperation, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The robots, digital factory models, VR/AR virtual reality, smart wearable devices and other intelligent devices displayed at the past nine expos has attracted nearly 600,000 visitors in total to feel the changes brought by information technology to production and life up close.
-- Ningbo's achievements in digital and intelligent development
As the host city of the Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo and the permanent host city of the World Digital Economy Conference, Ningbo has reaped fruitful results in smart city building and digital economy development.
Since taking the lead in the deployment of smart city construction in 2010, the city has walked out an innovative road of integrated development of digital economy and new smart city, winning 40-odd honors in smart city construction.
It has made strong efforts in building new information infrastructure to provide a solid network guarantee for its intelligent development. As of the end of June this year, the city has built and opened 8,488 5G base stations, basically covering the core city area and the urban areas of all the counties.
The city has vigorously promoted the construction of smart applications such as smart health, smart education, smart transportation, and micro courts to benefit the people. It launched the first cloud hospital nationwide, forging a unified "internet plus medical health" platform. It leads the country in smart education, creating multiple educational resource trading platforms and online education platforms.
It has seized the opportunities for big data development, taking the lead in the construction of a unified municipal government cloud computing center nationwide and building a public data sharing and exchange system to serve smart city construction. By the end of 2019, its data exchange platform had covered the city's 34 departments and 90 business systems.
The city has also made strong efforts in developing digital economy. In 2019, the added value of the city's digital economy core industries hit 67.6 billion yuan, up 14.8 percent year on year. The intelligent transformation of its manufacturing sector has also been continuously progressed. According to the 2019 report on the China Intelligent Manufacturing Index (CIMI), the city's CIMI ranked fifth nationwide in 2019.
The past nine Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expos held here have vigorously promoted the smart city construction and the digital economy development of Ningbo.
In 2019, the People's Government of Zhejiang Province decided Ningbo as the permanent host city of the World Digital Economy Conference which would be held concurrently with the Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo, creating a higher-level international platform for exchanges and cooperation in smart city construction and digital economy development.
As this year marks the 10th anniversary of Ningbo's smart city construction, special exhibition areas are set up in the upcoming event to showcase the city's achievements in smart city construction, software development and digital government construction. (Contributed by Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, gushanshan.1987@163.com)
A single purchase
