This year's Apsara Conference opens in Hangzhou on Sept 19. [Photo/WeChat account: hzfbwx]

The Apsara Conference opened in the Cloud Town of Hangzhou on Sept 19, with the theme "AI on Cloud: Recharging, Innovating and Transforming".

The three-day event featured three main forums with one on each day and over 400 parallel sessions and sub-forums, along with a sprawling 40,000 square meters of smart technology exhibition space showcasing over 100 AI applications from around the globe.

In a keynote speech, Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group and chairman of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, said that despite the remarkable advancements in AI over the past 22 months, the field is still in the earlier stages of evolution.

Wu highlighted that the true potential of generative AI lies not merely in creating a few new super apps for smartphones but in reshaping the digital realm to transform the physical world.

This year's Apsara Conference featured three main thematic pavilions. The AI+ pavilion showcased global AI development trends, the computing pavilion presented the deconstruction of the supply of computing power, data and tools, and the frontier application pavilion displayed the most cutting-edge AI native applications.

The event attracted leading technologies in large AI models, autonomous driving, robotics, and more, collectively showcasing the cutting-edge trends in cloud innovation during the AI era.

Attendees at the conference were treated to innovative interactive spaces, offering a playful journey through the process of building AI applications from inception to fruition. Additionally, the event hosted a music festival, providing audiences with a unique fusion of technology and music.

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing unit of Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group, unveils the latest version of its artificial intelligence-powered large language models, Qwen 2.5 at the conference. [Photo/WeChat account: hzfbwx]