As emerging technologies reshape the cultural production chain, content producers must prioritize quality, ensuring that technology serves positive ends and allows culture to thrive, officials and experts emphasized at an industry forum in Changsha, Hunan province, on Monday.
The 2026 Culture and Technology Industry Development Forum — the first of its kind — brought together nearly 1,400 guests from the cultural and tech sectors to discuss advancing cultural productivity through innovation.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the event, Ji Bingxuan, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, highlighted that culture provides value orientation for technological innovation, while technology offers robust support for cultural development.
“Major technological breakthroughs have always driven profound changes in how culture is produced, presented, and disseminated,” Ji said.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 16 sub-sectors with new cultural formats — including internet services, the digital economy, and smart cultural consumption — generated 7.67 trillion yuan ($1.15 trillion) in revenue last year, marking a 15.1 percent increase year-on-year.
This data underscores the growing contribution of new cultural formats to high-quality development, Ji noted.
He underscored the urgent strategic task of developing the culture-tech industry, noting its knowledge-intensive nature, extensive industrial chains, and significant potential for job creation.
Mao Junfa, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor of electronics and information engineering at Shenzhen University, stressed the importance of artificial intelligence in cultural development and fostering new productive forces of quality. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
