The 2024 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference is scheduled to open in Beijing in late April, featuring a series of heavyweight activities, according to a news briefing held on Wednesday morning.

Themed "Innovating for a Better World", the 2024 ZGC Forum, which will run from April 25 to 29, includes five sections made up of forum conferences, technology trade fairs, achievement releases, frontier competitions and supporting events, with nearly 120 planned activities, according to organizers.

The forum has invited representatives of over 150 foreign government departments and international organizations from more than 100 countries and regions. During the event, more than 100 experts and over 1,000 speakers will hold in-depth discussions on topics such as technological innovation leading social progress, improving people's livelihoods and sustainable development.

This year, the forum will highlight the exploration of cutting-edge technologies, the sharing of achievements and open cooperation, Chen Jiachang, vice-minister of science and technology, told the news conference.

Revolving around cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, life sciences, new materials and other scientific and technological frontiers, the forum will hold a series of activities, release a batch of the latest major scientific and technological achievements and demonstrate a leading role in nurturing new quality productive forces and promoting global technological innovation.

With a focus on the dual national goals of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060, medical health, clean energy and other technologies related to people's livelihoods, the event will provide a trading and sharing platform for more than 3,000 scientific and technological achievements from over 40 countries and regions through activities such as the ZGC International Technology Trade Fair and the Zhongguancun International Advanced Technology Innovation Competition.

To assist open cooperation, the forum will involve not only intergovernmental dialogues on scientific and technological cooperation but extensive invitations to international scientific and technological organizations, scientists, innovative enterprises and investors to participate, bringing together global wisdom, establishing communication platforms and injecting new vitality into global scientific and technological cooperation.

"We are looking forward to gathering with guests from all sectors in Beijing to exchange ideas, build consensus and make this year's forum an exciting and productive global event for scientific and technological innovation exchange and cooperation," Chen said.

Launched in 2007, the ZGC Forum has been held for 14 sessions, serving as a State-level platform for global sci-tech exchanges and cooperation as well as integrating into the world's innovation network with an open attitude.