The opening ceremony of the Beijing Forum was held on November 7, 2025, in Beijing. Photo: Courtesy of Peking University
At the opening of the Beijing Forum on Friday, a diplomat highlighted that China’s wealth of expertise, information and vibrant AI market performs an important position in fostering world concord by means of innovation within the digital age.
The remark was made by Park Jin, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, at the Beijing Forum in Beijing, themed “Civilizational Coexistence in the Age of Digital Intelligence.” The discussion board, hosted by Peking University and co-sponsored by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission and the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, serves as a platform for world dialogue.
Speakers from authorities, universities and the scientific neighborhood highlighted China’s rising position in high-tech collaboration whereas underscoring the ethical and instructional challenges posed by AI’s speedy rise.
In the opening remarks, Park spoke about scientific cooperation between China and South Korea. He famous that by means of initiatives such because the science and expertise joint committee and the expertise innovation discussion board, the 2 international locations have strengthened collaboration in areas like robotics, AI analysis and local weather science. He highlighted that these commitments have already yielded tangible outcomes, together with developments in carbon seize, inexperienced hydrogen, polar exploration, and AI-based catastrophe prediction, with shared information outcomes. Both international locations are additionally working collectively underneath the UNESCO AI Ethics Guidelines.
Prior to the latest APEC summit held in Gyeongju, South Korea, the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting was held in Incheon in August, the place a broad consensus was reached. Ministers from the taking part economies agreed that synthetic intelligence and digital transformation are key drivers of sustainable improvement within the Asia-Pacific area. They mentioned accountable digital innovation and the reliable use of AI, he mentioned.
The Beijing Forum kick off in Beijing on November 7, 2025. Photo: Zhang Yiyi/GT
Park said that this dialogue marks a turning level for the Asia-Pacific area, because it shifts the main target from merely asserting technological cooperation to realizing the imaginative and prescient of a accountable expertise neighborhood. The declaration on AI cooperation gives a brand new course for the worldwide order, one which might be based mostly on value-driven collaboration and mutual belief.
Beyond China-South Korea cooperation, tutorial leaders additionally underscored the rising depth of China’s collaboration with main world universities.
University College London (UCL) President Michael Spence advised the Global Times on Friday throughout an interview that China is transferring rapidly on a number of high-tech fronts, from humanoid robotics to electrical autos and deep-tech purposes.
China is making “very significant and sophisticated technological advances,” he mentioned, including that UCL is “very proud of our collaborations with Chinese researchers across a range of fields.” Such partnerships are more and more serving to either side discover how new applied sciences may be utilized in observe.
He additionally famous that each governments see worth in tutorial cooperation. The UK is supportive of joint scientific analysis with China — “our government is encouraging us to cooperate with Chinese researchers,” he mentioned, including he believes that the Chinese facet holds an analogous view.
Despite geopolitical uncertainties, Spence mentioned exchanges between students, policymakers and trade stay important. He known as boards targeted on expertise governance notably significant, saying that “any international meeting of people committed to cooperation around the cultural impacts of the new technologies is a good thing.” With expertise advancing “so fast” and carrying each “great potential advantages” and “huge dangers,” he hopes this 12 months’s discussion board will foster substantive discussions in addition to casual conversations “in the corridors,” serving to construct a broader understanding of what efficient regulation ought to appear to be.
Beyond increasing cooperation with China, individuals famous that the accelerating tempo of AI improvement makes questions of ethics, belief and accountable use more and more pressing.
Michael Levitt, Nobel laureate in Chemistry 2013 and professor of Stanford University, mentioned that AI must be considered as one among a number of types of intelligence shaping the longer term, alongside organic and cultural intelligence. He famous that generative AI made a serious leap as soon as fashions have been skilled on large textual content corpora, enabling them to foretell the subsequent phrase with shocking accuracy — a functionality that underpins translation, transcription and reasoning. He pressured that customers should strategy AI with curiosity, asking questions “like an 8-year-old” to totally unlock its potential.
He highlighted AI’s quickly rising utility, saying he depends on a number of massive fashions day by day for coding, scientific analyses and decoding advanced paperwork. Levitt described AI as a strong device that may considerably amplify human functionality, however cautioned that its output have to be approached with scientific scepticism, as true progress relies on testing and verification somewhat than blind belief.
Tan Eng Chye, president of the National University of Singapore, warned that societies should both grasp AI or danger being overtaken by it. He mentioned the alternatives made right this moment will form not solely universities but additionally future economies and generations, calling for fast motion to organize for the AI period.
Tan outlined three priorities for universities: offering robust management by making AI a strategic focus and bettering governance; investing in individuals in order that college, workers and college students can confidently and creatively use AI; and embedding ethics and equity to make sure AI serves humanity by means of clear, privacy-protecting and inclusive practices.
Cheng Lesong, Boya Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Peking University, mentioned the “age of intelligence” is reshaping day by day life and even the construction of civilization, but most individuals nonetheless really feel like outsiders to the applied sciences remodeling their world. He famous that fascination and worry now coexist, as algorithms and information convey unprecedented effectivity whereas deepening data asymmetry, leaving many with out the data or voice wanted to take part in governance and ethical debates.
He known as for defending human dignity amid speedy change — resisting turning into “playthings of algorithms,” cultivating important reflection and real-world connection, and setting clear ethical boundaries so expertise stays people-centred. Cheng urged pluralistic, cross-civilizational cooperation to construct shared norms for accountable AI, stressing that coexistence, somewhat than not zero-sum rivalry, ought to information how humanity and its personal applied sciences evolve collectively.
As the wave of digital intelligence continues to reshape the course of human civilization, audio system emphasised the necessity for mutual studying and shared knowledge to beat limitations and navigate rising uncertainties. Bringing collectively greater than 400 company and students from 36 international locations and areas, this 12 months’s Beijing Forum displays a rising world effort to hunt new pathways for cooperation, expertise governance and civilizational trade within the age of digital intelligence.
The Beijing Forum prides itself on being worldwide, tutorial and impactful. It has been held yearly since 2004. To date, greater than 7,000 dignitaries and students from around the globe have convened in Beijing for the discussion board, demonstrating its significance and significance, based on its official web site.