“When we talk about the future, it is already here. When we discuss the approaching possibility, it is already with us.” Five years ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the major deployment and national strategy to “accelerate the efforts to build Shanghai into a science and technology innovation center with global influence.” In the five years since, Shanghai has continued to optimize resource allocation, improved the innovation ecosystem and stayed committed to improving its innovation ability, so as to enhance its influence in the global innovation network. Now, five years later, On June 26, thanks to the careful arrangement of the Organization Department of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and Shanghai Administration Institute, the 28^th middle and long-term outbound training class had a remarkable forum – “Future Forum: Foreseeing the Future.” 

    Famous Technological leaders including SHI Qian, Director and Secretary of the General Party Branch of the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science, MAO Junfa, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Vice President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, WANG Welin, Chief Engineer of Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd., WU Jiarui, Dean of the School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University and Vice President of Shanghai Institute of Advanced Studies, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. shared in a face to face way with the students the strategic initiatives adopted by Shanghai and breakthroughs made in the strategic industries such as artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, biomedicine, and other strategic industries and some crucial hitting-a –bottleneck fields through keynote speeches and interactive exchanges. ZENG Jun, Vice President of Shanghai Administration Institute, SHI Yaoting, Deputy Director of Cadre Education Division of Organization Department of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, TU Ye, Director of Public Servant Training Division of Shanghai Administration Institute, and other leaders attended the forum. ZENG Jun presided over the forum.

    MAO Junfa said that artificial intelligence is a strategic technology that leads the future. He cited crucial strategies and relevant measures by some major developed countries to enhance national competitiveness and maintain international security through AI development, and revealed that China’s vigorous AI development will help enhance national security and international competitiveness, achieve innovation-driven development, accelerate transformation of the economic development pattern, and promote the supply-side structural reform. As a pioneer in the development of AI technology, Shanghai has launched the application scenarios such as “AI+Industry”, “AI+Finance”, “AI+Medical Care”, “AI+Education” and “AI+Transportation” to promote the cluster effect of top global enterprises. In the interactions, he mentioned that Shanghai boasts abundant data, data specification, and technological development advantages, but it needs to be more adventurous.
      WANG Weilin introduced the development of high-performance general processor technology and domestic processors. He first introduced the three core technologies in the integrated circuit field, CPU + GPU + CHIPSET, namely, Central Processor Unit + Graphics Processor Unit + Chipset. Then, he mentioned that Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (Zhaoxin) controlled by Shanghai SASAC is the only company that has made breakthroughs in the three core technologies in China, and has just released the first domestic 16-nanometer CPU, which is a milestone in domestic chips. Wang Weilin said that despite of the breakthroughs, there is still a gap between Zhaoxin and world-class enterprises when we observe it calmly, and efforts need to be made at a faster pace to catch up in terms of frequency, micro-architecture design, packaging technology, etc. In today’s world, if a country wants to have the initiative of development in its own hands, it must break through the bottlenecks in general chip technology and solve the problem of disadvantages caused by lack of chips.
      Around the theme of the Great Health Era, WU Jiarui vividly explained three biomedical transformations from medical and philosophical perspectives, namely, from molecular biology to system biomedicine, from group medicine to individual medicine, from clinical medicine to health medicine. From the perspective of precise medicine based on systems biology, incorporating a strategic vision of big health, he popularized medicine integrating knowledge, application and thinking, and interacted and exchanged views with students on the hotspots in the prevention and research of chronic diseases.
      At the beginning of the forum, SHI Qian made a special lecture entitled Global Development Trends of Science and Technology and a summary near the end of the forum. He described the development situation of the three strategic technologies (artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, and biomedicine) Shanghai undertakes as co-existence of expectation with crisis and co-existence of opportunities with challenges. He believed that scientific and technological innovation should stick to the goal, mobilize the society, make systematic layout, and focus on promotion; a group of pioneers should be encouraged to emerge, brave to embrace the future, and participate in international competition on behalf of China; more importantly, we should remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, continue to make new miracles in Shanghai’s development by “upholding mountain-high faith, serving the people as selflessly as the ocean, staying steel-willed in taking their responsibility and working hard with fire-like passion in the future”.
       Finally, ZENG Jun expressed thanks to the famous technological leaders for the sharing and enlightenment they brought to the training class, and expected the students to keep “acting and learning” energetically in their work and to observe the disciplines strictly.