Global AI Conference (WAIC) 2024 held in Shanghai

The event drew a record-breaking crowd, with more than 300,000 visits to its conferences and exhibitions onsite by 2pm on Saturday, despite the hot weather. Online traffic soared to a staggering 2 billion views, marking another WAIC record since 2018.

Global AI conference (WAIC) 2024

More than 1,300 officials, industry leaders and scientists from 50 countries and regions shared their expertise, with more than 500 companies showcasing over 1,500 cutting-edge products across the vast 52,000-square-meter exhibition halls. Notably, 50 of these products were unveiled for the first time at WAIC 2024.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

The closing ceremony also witnessed the signing of more than 24 city-level AI projects, representing a combined investment of 40 billion yuan (US$5.48 billion). These projects focus on advancements in AI models and intelligent computing ecosystems.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

Shanghai also unveiled several initiatives during WAIC 2024. The city opened the Shanghai AI Security Governance Lab and the Shanghai AI Computing Power Public Platform on Saturday, both serving as valuable resources for future AI development.

Global AI Conference (WAIC) 2024

Additionally, the Shanghai government and China Mobile signed a collaboration agreement to establish and upgrade 5G-A networks within three years.

The combination of 5G-A and AI, with high-speed network and powerful positioning capabilities, holds immense potential for sectors like the low-altitude economy, smart transportation, digital factories, and smart energy, said Shanghai Mobile.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

Recognizing the critical role of corpus data in powering AI development, Shanghai released more upgrades on corpus, in an industry forum of WAIC on Saturday.

The new releases cover corpus operation and data products, a city-level corpus industry development initiative and several white papers in various industrious. High-quality, large-scale, secure and trustworthy corpus data resources are an important cornerstone of the AI era, experts told the forum.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

With the WAIC 2024 exhibition to conclude on Sunday, the city's commitment to AI innovation continues. Organizers confirmed that Shanghai will proudly host WAIC 2025. As city deputy mayor Chen Jie said: Let's meet in 2025

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

The exhibition and forums cover AI ethics, autonomous driving, large language models, big data, computing power, 6G and humanoid robots, showcasing the latest "AI plus" innovations and unveiling anticipated new products.

More than 500 domestic and international companies have registered to participate, including SenseTime, Alibaba, Tesla, Microsoft and Schneider.

Global AI Conference (WAIC) 2024

The conference is also expected to bring together nine Turing, Fields and Nobel laureates, along with 88 academicians, in attendance.

It aims to create a world-class cooperation and exchange platform for high-tech talents, offering new opportunities to the world through "Chinese wisdom."

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

China is ready to work with other countries around the globe to promote artificial intelligence to better serve global development and the well-being of humanity, moving toward a brighter intelligent future, Premier Li Qiang said.

Li made the remarks in Shanghai when addressing the opening ceremony of the 2024 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance.

With the theme "governing AI for good and for all", the three-day event has gathered government officials, heads of international organizations, business leaders and researchers from around the world.

Global AI Conference (WAIC) 2024

The meeting followed the United Nations General Assembly's unanimous adoption on Monday of a resolution on strengthening international cooperation on AI capacity building that was proposed by China and co-sponsored by over 140 countries.

Li highlighted the significant progress in AI development since the inaugural World AI Conference in 2018, and acknowledged the new challenges AI poses in areas such as law, security, employment, ethics and morality.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

He underlined the urgent need for in-depth discussions and consensus-building among nations on global AI governance, and called for collective efforts to seize opportunities and address challenges.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

It is important to strengthen partnerships on basic research and talent exchanges and collectively safeguard the security and stability of industrial and supply chains, he said.

The premier emphasized the importance of promoting inclusive development to bridge the AI development gap, and urged joint actions to create an open, fair and nondiscriminatory environment for AI development.

Global AI Conference  (WAIC) 2024

Alignment of development strategies, governance rules and technical standards in the AI sector should be strengthened, and governance frameworks and standard specifications with broad consensus should be formulated to ensure safe, reliable and controllable AI development so that it is always in line with the fundamental interests and values of humanity, Li said.

Around 1,000 domestic and international representatives attended the opening ceremony, including Luis Roberto Barroso, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, president of the New Development Bank, and Gerd Muller, director general of the UN Industrial Development Organization.

The event adopted the Shanghai Declaration on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence. The UNIDO Global Alliance on AI for Industry and Manufacturing Center of Excellence, which will be based in Shanghai, was also launched at the opening ceremony.

Sassine Ghazi, president and CEO of Synopsys, a global leader in semiconductor electronic design automation, silicon intellectual property and application security, said the pace of AI innovation must be carefully balanced with the need for responsibility in how AI is developed.

"The best approach to achieve the balance is to work together globally," Ghazi said. "Global collaboration will enable people worldwide to benefit from the incredible advances that AI is bringing while ensuring that those amazing new capabilities are deployed responsibly."