The 6th World Media Summit opened on Monday morning in Urumqi, the capital city of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Under the theme “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Media Transformation,” the summit was attended by over 500 participants from 106 countries and regions, including representatives of 208 mainstream media outlets, government agencies, and international organizations.
The event was co-hosted by the Chinese media organization Xinhua News Agency and the regional government of Xinjiang.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the summit, Fu Hua, President of the Xinhua News Agency, observed that the opportunities and challenges that AI brings to the media are quite enormous but urged media organizations to embrace and push for its upgrade in order to enhance their practice.
“The World Media Summit has become a major platform for media discussions. The opportunities and challenges artificial intelligence presents are enormous. It is important for the media to embrace AI and push for its upgrade in order to enhance the work of media practitioners,” said Hua.
The President of Xinhua said his organization’s leadership in investing in media AI technology leading to the development of AI tools has increased Xinhua‘s efficiency by about 70 percent.
He expressed the desire of the Xinhua News Agency to collaborate with other media outlets across the globe in order to uphold the ethics of journalism and urged others to do the same.
Speaker after speaker called on media institutions to take advantage of the numerous benefits that AI tools present to enhance their media practice.
The World Media Summit is a premium media global exchange coordination platform. It was jointly launched in 2009 by a group of globally renowned media organizations, including Xinhua News Agency, the Associated Press, and Reuters.
