Xiamen Torch Academy held a salon, entitled "Torch Innovation-Sharing: Metaverse Promoting Industrial Transformation," in collaboration with the Fujian Association for Artificial Intelligence (FAAI) on December 21, 2021, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), explore the latest developments in frontier technology, and create more business opportunities.

The salon event was presided over by Fu Jing, executive vice-president of Xiamen Torch Academy.

In his congratulatory speech, Kuang Dengfeng, member of the Party committee of the Xiamen Torch Development Zone for High Technology Industries, extended thanks to local government departments, the FAAI, the Xiamen branch of China Merchants Bank (CMB) and other social organizations for their support of the Torch Innovation-Sharing salon event.

Kuang said that the Torch Innovation-Sharing salon event, an open eco-system, is committed to attracting first-class resources, promoting the exchange of knowledge and experience, and empowering local firms in their development. He called on attending enterprises to establish their presence in Xiamen, nurture business opportunities, and to develop the innovative dialogue platform into a leading brand.

Lu Yang, chairperson of the FAAI, said that the association will strengthen its cooperation with Xiamen Torch Academy on the organization of the Torch Innovation-Sharing salon event, as well as on promoting technological progress and industrial prosperity in Xiamen and Fujian in the future.

Wang Jiannan, vice-president of the CMB Xiamen branch, noted that the commercial bank has always embraced and supported digital transformation, rolled out a services system for corporate digitization, and made noticeable achievements in the development of AI, cloud computing, blockchain and financial technology over the past several years. He added that the bank looks forward to closer cooperation with all participants at the event.

Shen Yang, a professor from the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University, explained the definition of the metaverse, its theoretical foundation and value sources, and explored its development trend and ecological roadmap in a keynote speech, entitled "Development and Challenges of the Mevaverse."

Shen said that as an internet application and social scenario integrated with many new technologies in a real and virtual manner, the metaverse is composed of five key elements: virtual-real integration, user production, embodiment interaction, common identity and economic system. He also conducted an evaluation on the health and risk indices of the eco-system of metaverse industry.

Xu Yongjun, a researcher from the Institute of Computing Technology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), talked about the definition of the metaverse and its industrial ecology, technological system and challenges, as well as its development direction and the opportunities it presents in a keynote speech, entitled "Information Infrastructure in the Mevaverse." He stressed that there are established industrial chains of integrated circuits and the internet of things (IoTs) for Xiamen to incorporate in the development of metaverse into tourism, animation, industry and education sectors.

During a roundtable debate, representatives from the Xiamen Institute of Software Technology, Baidu VR, SAIF Partners, Xiamen Phoenix OneSoft Co., Ltd., Xiamen Mechanist Internet Technologies Co., Ltd. and the China Telecom (Xiamen) Technological Innovation Center shared with attendees their views and proposals.

Those in attendance also included Xu Wengong, deputy director-general of the Xiamen Bureau of Industry and Information Technology; Li Heng, vice-director of the Department for High-tech Technology in the Xiamen Development and Reform Commission.