What is the future like? 2023 "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" Theme Summit to Tell You

On May 12, 2023, the MIT Technology Review China "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" themed summit was successfully held in Hangzhou Future Technology City. The summit is guided by the Talent Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Committee, co hosted by the Talent Office of the Yuhang District Committee, the Management Committee of Hangzhou Future Science and Technology City (Haichuang Park), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review China, and co hosted by DeepTech and Yunyue Technology (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. At the meeting, top domestic and foreign experts, industry leaders, renowned investors, and government representatives jointly discussed the latest progress of the "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" and their impact on human society.

At the beginning of the summit, DeepTech co founder Chen Yushan gave an opening speech on behalf of MIT Technology Review China, briefly reviewing the development history of the "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" of the MIT Technology Review, and stating that the summit brought together top experts from academia and industry, as well as innovative and entrepreneurial talents, to jointly explore the "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" selected this year. Subsequently, Wang Xuan, Deputy Secretary of the Yuhang District Committee and District Mayor, delivered a speech and warmly welcomed the guests and audience friends present. He stated that Yuhang District is focusing on the digital economy as its core, striving to create an innovative urban brand for Yuhang, and accelerating the construction of the five major industrial ecosystems. After fully recognizing the large number of technologies and projects landing in China over the past three years, he emphasized that Yuhang District will continue to prioritize technological innovation as the key to future development, and provide high-quality space and service guarantees to attract excellent technology projects. At the same time, he also welcomes more experts, talents, and entrepreneurs to visit and inspect Yuhang, share the dividends of Yuhang's development, and witness its growth together.

Image: Wang Xuan, Deputy Secretary of the Yuhang District Committee and District Mayor

It is reported that this summit is one of the 2023 Hangzhou "Youth Tide and Creation Season" youth talent innovation and entrepreneurship series activities, which is a positive response to the development concept of "talent leading, innovation driven, and industry city integration" in Yuhang District. It also reflects Yuhang's millennium Liangzhu spirit based on originality, innovation, and outsourcing, hoping to attract and gather more cutting-edge industries, top technology, and high-end talents, and further improve Yuhang's industrial level.

Next, Yin Fan, Deputy Director of the Talent Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, gave a detailed introduction to the achievements in talent work and the environment for talent innovation and entrepreneurship in Hangzhou in recent years. She stated that Hangzhou has always attached great importance to the construction of a talent team, and the Talent Office of the Municipal Party Committee has long been committed to creating a positive environment for the healthy growth of talents and the city, achieving outstanding results such as ranking 14th in the 2022 Global Innovation Index. Yin Fan further introduced Hangzhou's talent work to the attending guests from five aspects: innovation strategy leading highland, institutional mechanism reform highland, scientific and technological achievement transformation highland, outstanding talent gathering highland, and service intelligent governance demonstration highland. He stated that in the future, he will continue to be fearless of innovation and encourage talents to innovate and start businesses in Hangzhou with "sunshine and rain".

Image: Yin Fan, Deputy Director of the Talent Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee

During the sharing session of the opening ceremony, two heavyweight guests gave speeches and shared the latest achievements and research reflections based on their respective research fields. Among them, Zhu Qingshi, an academician of the CAS Member, an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences, the former president of the University of Science and Technology of China, and the founding president of South University of Science and Technology, first pointed out the importance of the summit and even encouraged people to pay attention to cutting-edge science and technology and innovation, and stressed that China is at the forefront of global scientific and technological innovation, and needs to accelerate the promotion of original innovation and core technology research with the spirit of independent innovation and practical work. Academician Zhu believes that the key to achieving this goal is to cultivate a large number of innovative talents, and points out that such talents should have characteristics such as extensive knowledge, questioning and verification, strong self-learning ability, and a spirit of perseverance and innovation. Academician Zhu also emphasized the importance of innovative talents in technological progress, using the stories of Nobel laureates Alfred and Gracer as examples.

Picture: Zhu Qingshi, Academician of the CAS Member, Academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences, former President of University of Science and Technology of China, founding President of South University of Science and Technology

Gao Fu, an academician of the CAS Member, a researcher of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, deputy director of the 8th Committee of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and former director of the China Center for Disease Control, said that in his opinion, although people are constantly recognizing the world today, they still have not fully released their creativity, and the related problems of "choking the neck" and "choking the brain" still need to be solved. He pointed out that behind the problem of technology being stuck in the neck is actually a scientific level of "brain blocking", while what binds the development of "limbs" is an engineering level problem. If we cannot discuss the three levels of science, technology, and engineering separately, it is easy to fall into related misconceptions and it is difficult to make progress at these levels. "Gao Fu believes," So today we need to have both scientific and technical talents, as well as engineering talents

Picture: Gao Fu, academician of the CAS Member, researcher of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, deputy director of the 8th Committee of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and former director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention

After the speech, the launch ceremony of the Hangzhou Yuhang VentureLab integrated scientific and technological innovation cultivation platform was held at the summit site. Wang Guoqiang, Deputy Director of the Talent Office of the Organization Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, Yin Fan, Deputy Director of the Talent Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, Deng Zheng, a member of the Party Group and Deputy Director of the Hangzhou Science and Technology Bureau, as well as leaders from other provinces, cities, districts, and future science and technology cities, as well as Chen Yushan, co-founder of DeepTech, jointly unveiled the ceremony. Zhang Lan, co-founder and COO of DeepTech, briefly introduced and interpreted the platform. The signing ceremony for the first batch of incubation projects was also held subsequently, covering multiple entrepreneurial projects belonging to different fields, such as the next-generation nanoantibody screening platform and AI empowering metabolic enhanced immunotherapy. This platform will focus on scientists as the core, focusing on the five major industrial ecosystems, deeply linking key roles such as universities, research institutes, industry, government, and capital, and building a science and technology innovation cultivation platform suitable for serving local research institutes, enterprises, and institutions in Yuhang.

Figure: Launching Ceremony of Hangzhou Yuhang VentureLab Integrated Science and Technology Innovation and Cultivation Platform

It is worth mentioning that a signing ceremony for strategic cooperation in collaborative cultivation of talent innovation projects was also held on site. At the ceremony, Zhang Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Yuhang District Committee and Minister of Organization, represented the Yuhang District Government, Li Fei, a member of the Organization Department of the Lishui Municipal Committee and a full-time deputy director of the Talent Office of the Lishui Municipal Committee, and Lin Hui, the Deputy Minister of the Organization Department of the Quzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and Director of the Civil Service Bureau, respectively, represented the "talent enclaves" of Lishui and Quzhou, as well as the co-founder of DeepTech Li Hang, CEO of Aiyi Science, jointly signed a strategic cooperation agreement on behalf of the Hangzhou Yuhang VentureLab integrated science and technology innovation and cultivation platform. In 2022, Yuhang District was selected as the second batch of provincial pilots of high-quality development and construction of common prosperity demonstration area in Zhejiang Province to promote two-way innovation and entrepreneurship of talents. Taking this cooperation signing as an opportunity, Yuhang, Quzhou, and Lishui will deeply promote the reform of the new model of "two-way innovation and entrepreneurship" for talents, focus on building factor circulation links and resource transformation channels, and accelerate the coordination of talent chains, industry chains, innovation chains, capital chains, and policy chains in different regions.

Next, Song Ning, the research director of DeepTech, presented an interpretation of the "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" of 2023, providing an in-depth analysis of technologies represented by life sciences, artificial intelligence, etc., and analyzing the current trends in technological development and commercialization.

Subsequently, the summit entered the sharing and dialogue stage, and was divided into five sections based on the breakthrough technologies selected this year and current technological hotspots, namely "Opening the 'Black Box' of AIGC", "Decoding the Future 'Core' World", "New Future of Sustainable Development", "Exploring the Meaning of Life", and "Cross border Roundtable Faction - Technology and Humanities".

In the "Open the 'Black Box' of AIGC" section, under the auspices of Pan Pengkai, a senior engineering expert of Zhijiang Laboratory's Intelligent Computing Platform Research Center, Mei Tao, founder and CEO of HiDream.ai, a foreign academician of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Zhang Jiaxing, a chair scientist of IDEA Research Institute, and Duan Nan, chief researcher of Microsoft Research Asia, around the current technologies of generative artificial intelligence and big models, We delved into the current development status of AIGC, the boundary between existing and future capabilities, open source of large models, and opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. Finally, we made our own predictions for the development of AIGC in the next decade. Pan Pengkai stated that AIGC has developed too quickly, and the interpretability problem has been basically solved. Ten years later, humans will either live forever or perish. He hopes that we can all live forever.

Figure: Round table conversation on "Opening AIGC's' Black Box '

In the upcoming "Decoding the Future 'Core' World" section, two technology entrepreneurs in the chip field shared the latest achievements and their forward-looking insights in this field. Among them, SynSense's founder and CEO Qiao Ning introduced the industrial development and applications of brain like computing, as well as the development process and product application of SynSense as a brain like chip company. He stated that brain like computing is the third artificial intelligence that can bring improvements in computing performance, speed, and power consumption, and will become one of the important technological development directions in the next decade.

Image: Jonning, Founder and CEO of SynSense Technology

Tian Kehan, Chairman and CEO of Yuguang Technology, introduced Yuguang Technology and its focus on micro nano optics. He stated that the company currently mainly produces diffraction waveguides in the fields of AR, VR, metaverse, as well as components in mobile phones. He introduced the manufacturing process and some representative products, such as ARHUD, DOE, diffraction waveguides, 3D sensors, etc.

Image: Tian Kehan, Chairman and CEO of Yuguang Technology

The "New Future of Sustainable Development" section focuses on environmental protection and sustainable development issues, and important guests from the academic community brought relevant theme sharing to everyone. Jin Zhijian, a senior professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University, the founder and chairman of Yixi Science and Technology, and the director of Shanghai High Temperature Superconducting Materials and Systems Engineering Technology Center, introduced controllable nuclear fusion and the application of high temperature superconducting materials, emphasized the advantages of high temperature superconducting materials, and described the experience of the superconducting team of Shanghai Jiaotong University in superconducting materials, technical cables, and strong field magnets, And the research and development achievements and goals of Yixi Technology in the application of fusion strong field magnets.

Image: Jin Zhijian, Professor in Chief at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Founder and Chairman of Yixi Technology, and Director of Shanghai High Temperature Superconducting Materials and Systems Engineering Technology Center

Jiang Benben, an assistant professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University, introduced how to use AI technology to accelerate the development of new energy batteries, including optimizing battery design, reducing testing and experimental time, and studying the interaction mechanism between electric vehicle energy storage and the power grid. He stated that due to the continuous development of the demand side, the emergence of the next generation of ultra-high performance batteries is bound to accelerate. He hopes to use AI machine learning technology to accelerate the process of research and application.

Image: Jiang Benben, Assistant Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Tsinghua University

Wang Ziqiang, Assistant Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Tsinghua University Shenzhen Graduate School of International Studies, first reviewed the development history of electric vehicles and lithium batteries, explored the future development of battery technology and the relationship between diversity and complementarity, and stated that the continuous progress of battery technology will support the future of sustainable development.

Image: Wang Ziqiang, Assistant Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School

Later, on the "Exploring the Meaning of Life" section, entrepreneurs from frontier fields such as biomedicine and synthetic biology shared their latest progress. Among them, Li Chengtao, founder and CEO of Galixir Star Pharmaceutical Technology, discussed the cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence in drug research and development, as well as how to use algorithms to break through computing power bottlenecks and achieve things that could not have been achieved with even greater computing power using AI technology. He is very optimistic about the future of AI pharmaceuticals and believes that more AI entering new drug research and development will continue to promote cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and solve previously unsolvable diseases and clinical problems.

Image: Li Chengtao, Founder and CEO of Galixir Star Pharmaceutical Technology

Zhang Tianyuan, founder and CEO of Juwei Yuanchuang, introduced the enormous advantages and broad application prospects of biosynthesis compared to traditional chemical production methods, as well as the outstanding progress and achievements of their research team in converting straw into high-value biosynthetic products, and elaborated on the team's future direction and plans. He pointed out that biosynthesis can effectively reduce the energy consumption and pollution of chemical methods, and solve the problem of green transformation in the industry.

Image: Zhang Tianyuan, Founder and CEO of Juwei Yuanchuang

The final segment of the summit is the "Cross border Roundtable Faction - Technology and Humanities" roundtable discussion, hosted by Zhang Lan, co-founder and COO of DeepTech. Qi Zichao, co-founder of Chenjing Technology, Li Xiaotao, co-founder and CEO of Beiai Intelligence, Zhang Le, founding partner of Leading the New Territories, Li Lan, assistant professor and doctoral supervisor of West Lake University, and Zhang Shuning, vice president of Hode Biomedical, sat together with five guests from diverse backgrounds and fields. They discussed cross-border cooperation, technology ethics, and public science dissemination around the integration and collision of technology and humanities, And the highly concerned issue of women in the field of technology. At the end of the round table, guests also expressed their thoughts on the next three to five years.

Figure: Roundtable Dialogue on "Cross border Roundtable Faction - Technology and Humanities"

The 2023 MIT Technology Review "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies" themed summit came to a successful conclusion amidst insightful thinking and collision. The attendees had in-depth discussions and exchanges on global technological innovation, development trends, cutting-edge technologies, and other topics, providing valuable insights and guidance for promoting Chinese style independent innovation and even global technological development. In the future, technology will continue to lead the progress of human society and provide more possibilities for various industries around the world.