Jean-Jacques Annaud, a noted French director, speaks at the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum on Tuesday.

Guests visit the cultural creativity exhibition area of the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum on Tuesday.

Beijing once again took center stage in the global cultural arena on Tuesday as it played host to the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum.

Launched in 2022, the forum, with a permanent theme of "Inheritance, Creativity, Mutual Learning", has evolved into a pivotal platform for Beijing's development in the new era, emphasizing international engagement.

This year's edition adopted "Integrated Development of Culture and Technology" as its annual theme, featuring an opening ceremony, six parallel forums, and more than 20 professional salons.

Nearly 800 guests from 58 countries and regions converged in China's capital for the two-day event. They included renowned experts, scholars, cultural figures, and industry leaders, all gathering to engage in in-depth discussions and exchange ideas.

At the opening ceremony, Yin Li, Party secretary of Beijing, highlighted that new cultural business forms, such as internet culture, entertainment, gaming and animation, generated nearly 1.6 trillion yuan ($225 billion) in revenue in 2024, energizing the city's sectors.

Former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin emphasized that culture transcends bilateral relations and must be advanced within a multilateral framework.

In a letter to the forum, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati noted that France and China both recognize the transformative role of disruptive technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. She emphasized that their innovation and growth potential will directly shape global culture and bring profound changes to the cultural sector worldwide.

Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, remarked on the essential role of digital technology in heritage protection, management, and education, highlighting China's leadership in digital innovation and heritage preservation.

Zhu Songchun, director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, stated that AI and humanities research can complement each other, with AI research providing deeper insights into human nature and cultural formation, while humanities offer cognitive frameworks and value systems for AI.

Gao Shiming, vice-president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, said that in recent years, diverse forms of Chinese art and literature have adapted to and thrived on new media platforms.

He encouraged contemporary artists to draw poetic inspiration from the lives and future aspirations of Chinese people, creating art and culture that integrates the ancient and modern, East and West, culture and technology. Such works, he stressed, should be shared with the public, advance the times, and be presented to the world.

A highlight of the forum's opening day was the release of several key achievements, including the report titled "From Initiative to Practice: 2024 Sino-Foreign Cultural Exchange Report".

According to it, 2024 marked a year of high-quality development in cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. Chinese proposals for the new era, exemplified by a series of global initiatives, not only injected vitality into the pursuit of modernization with Chinese characteristics but offered solutions to address challenges in a turbulent and rapidly changing world.

The report noted that 2024 witnessed a multidimensional and comprehensive development pattern in Sino-foreign cultural exchanges. Robust cooperation in technology has driven the creation of an innovative ecosystem for cultural exchanges; deeper collaboration in public health has advanced the building of a global community of health for all; strengthened partnerships in environmental governance have led global ecological civilization construction; and enhanced cooperation in media has promoted people-to-people exchanges and mutual understanding.

Looking ahead, the report indicated that Sino-foreign cultural exchanges are entering a new phase of prosperity. China stands ready to join hands with other countries — taking cultural exchanges as a bond and mutual learning among civilizations as a bridge — to collectively address global issues.

In addition to the report, the forum also announced the top 10 major events in the construction of a national cultural center in 2024 and 18 significant cultural achievements.

Three major project agreements were also signed on-site, covering areas such as AI-driven art creation, AI applications in museums, and Sino-German cooperation on global governance and civilizational mutual learning.

On the first day of the event, six parallel forums were held, focusing on topics including digital empowerment for cultural heritage, technology-driven cultural originality, and respecting the diversity of civilization.

Through keynote speeches, roundtable discussions, and case presentations, the parallel sessions delved into a wide range of topics related to the integration of culture and technology.

Another key event of the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum was the Conference of Cultural Sector Investors, which took place on Wednesday. The event spotlighted the new quality productive forces within the sector, showcasing cutting-edge research outcomes, major industrial collaborations and innovative practice cases. It aimed at deep integration and collaborative innovation among culture, technology and finance. More than 50 major projects were signed on-site, covering various fields such as cultural technology and cultural scene innovation.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn