A five-day fact-finding visit to three cities in Jiangsu province by 15 English and Portuguese-language media journalists from Macau ended yesterday, and Hoje Macau (“Today Macau”) Director Carlos Morais José pointed how important it was for Macau to learn about the nation’s successful experience in its integrated development of culture and technology.
Morais José, who headed the media delegation, said the trip was a “magnificent” journey of learning from the three cities – Nanjing, Wuxi and Suzhou – in Jiangsu province, about their history and technology development: “We learnt a lot about Jiangsu – Nanjing, Wuxi and Suzhou. Suzhou is a very special town with a long history and long reports of culture and also innovation, even in ancient times……We learnt a lot about the history of the city, and we hope to come back and deepen our experience here because there’s so much to see.”
At the invitation of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), the 15 journalists from eight English and Portuguese-language media outlets in Macau, accompanied by officials from the Liaison Office and the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS), including Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the MSAR Publicity and Culture Department Director-General Wan Sucheng, started their five-day visit to Nanjing, Wuxi and Suzhou last Thursday.
Wrapping up the delegation’s tour of the three cities, Morais José had a message to his readers, especially those who live in Macau, that they “should visit [mainland] China and see the progress it has made these decades and appreciate this civilisation,” saying: “What we want to show them is what we saw, so then each one of us will have a different vision that will be complementary to each other”.
Members of the delegation finished their trip yesterday, with guided tours of Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) Exhibition Centre and iFLYTEK (Suzhou) AI Exhibition Hall located at Suzhou Industrial Park. The local journalists were visibly impressed by the nation’s development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Suzhou Industrial Park is, according to an information board displayed at the exhibition centre, the first cooperation project between the Chinese and Singaporean governments, consisting of four functional zones, namely, its High-end Manufacturing and International Trade Zone, Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation Zone, Yangcheng Lake Peninsula Tourist Resort Zone, and Jinji Lake Central Business District, covering a 278-square-kilometre area, with its total population and number of permanent residents standing at over 13 million and 11.3 million respectively.
Speaking to the local Suzhou media on the sidelines of the visit to iFLYTEK (Suzhou) AI Exhibition Hall, Ponto Final (“Full Stop”) and Macau Closer Director Ricardo Pinto said that AI can be used both in a very positive way or in a very negative way, adding that robots help human beings a lot which can be used for all sorts of things but, at the same time, AI also has implications triggering people’s concerns about the way it is going to be developed and the kind of control that human beings would have over the technology.
iFLYTEK Co. Ltd specialises in intelligent voice and AI for interactive and experiential products, such as iFLYTEK Smart Translator, Smart Recorders and Smart VoiceBook, as well as chess robot iFlyGO.
Pinto urged governments, companies and civil society to reflect on the technological development and think what would be the best path for the future application of AI technology: “I think that Macau all these years has been concentrating a lot on the tourism industry, basically also some of the gambling, but other than gambling, there is historical tourism and so on as well. And some of these devices [AI translators] can definitely have a use in this kind of industry,” pointing out that collaborating with mainland companies was one way of developing Macau’s appropriately diversified economy.
Meanwhile, Zhi Hongping, general manager of iFLYTEK (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. and executive director of iFLYTEK Suzhou Research Institute, talked to the local Suzhou media and members of the Macau media delegation about the key difficulties encountered by the company’s team in the process of operation and development, as well as the suggestions to help Macau’s AI research teams to develop better, saying that as a company that has been working closely with the education and academic sectors for a long time, it is looking forward to working more closely with Macau’s academic community, encouraging Macau’s outstanding students to join the industrial sector.
The delegation arrived back in Macau last night. Its members concluded that the well-organised and culturally, technologically and, last but not least, culinarily stimulating fact-finding tour enabled them to gain valuable insights into the nation’s development in the new era. They also underlined their hosts’ great hospitality and kindliness in the three cities.
iFLYTEK (Suzhou) AI Exhibition Hall showcases yesterday its robot dog product to members of the local English and Portuguese-language media delegation organised by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR).
Journalists from eight English and Portuguese-language media outlets in Macau are briefed about the development of the Suzhou Industrial Park at its exhibition centre yesterday. – Photos: Yuki Lei
Hoje Macau Director Carlos Morais José (left) and Ponto Final and Macau Closer Director Ricardo Pinto speak to reporters, respectively, at the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) Exhibition Centre and iFLYTEK (Suzhou) AI Exhibition Hall yesterday, the last day of their five-day fact-finding tour of Jiangsu. – Photo combo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
