The Bay RisesA New Era Begins

The transformation of a century is unfolding in depth; a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is sweeping the globe, and the centre of innovation keeps moving east.

New quality productive forces are surging and disruptive technologies keep emerging. While they bring enormous opportunity, they also raise entirely new questions for industrial-chain coordination, the translation of research into industry, the governance of technology ethics and the cross-border flow of talent. Government mechanisms play the top-level guiding role; civil dialogue platforms are the important bond and bridge that connects scientists, industry, capital and young research communities.

In 2015 a group of scholars and experts proposed the founding of the Shenzhen Bay Forum, taking root in the fertile ground of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. We hold to the core idea of “link, empower, responsibility, win-win” and have built a pattern in which the forum platform is the body and serving government, enterprise and talent are the two wings: dozens of summits and thematic seminars; academicians, economists, industry leaders and investors gathered; a series of think-tank outputs including the Bay Area development blue book and the Shenzhen Bay Innovation Index; and more than eighty innovation projects empowered to grow.

Standing at the highlight moment when the Asia-Pacific leaders' informal meeting is held in Shenzhen, the Forum opens a wholly new journey of “re-positioning and re-setting sail”: from serving the Greater Bay Area to being rooted in Shenzhen Bay, facing Asia-Pacific and radiating to the world, committed to building a world-class civil science-and-industry forum.

To government, we wish to be a civil observation window on policy practice and a hub of industrial feedback; to academicians and research workers, a bridge that carries source innovation into market application; to technology entrepreneurs and investment institutions, a practical field of collaboration; to university faculty, students and the broad community of science and technology workers, an open and inclusive platform of exchange. Looking up at the stars, one should have breadth of vision, altitude and a sense of responsibility; standing on solid ground, one must seek truth and be practical. The road is hard and long, yet walking will bring us there.

“Joining hands with government, academicians, industrial capital, universities and industry, holding fast to technology for good, and building an open, win-win innovation community.

A platform usually appears not because someone wants to run a forum, but because there is one thing that has to be done.

The Shenzhen Bay Forum originated in a deep collision of ideas in Beijing in early 2015. Experts from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the International Exchange Centre of the Ministry of Commerce, leading investment institutions and Ping An held discussions on innovation, technology investment and the global economy. At that time regional innovation resources were scattered, university–industry linkages weak, and the market lacked an exchange vehicle rooted in the Bay Area and close to industry.

Comparing the endowments of the world's major bay areas, the experts fixed their eyes on Shenzhen Bay between Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. After a prudent discussion of whether to take the finance track or the science-and-innovation track, the team settled on the name “Shenzhen Bay Forum”.

Four principles, four ways of working

These four words are not slogans but four ways of working: first let people meet, then give them tools, then shoulder the hard thing together, and finally divide it clearly.

Ten Editions, One Thread

• One. Ten editions are not ten years with one meeting each. The first seven held one annual plenary each; the eighth and ninth ran several sessions around a single track.
• Two. The agenda was one step ahead of the documents: integrated circuits in 2019 and low altitude in 2023, both before the policy documents and the industrial surge.
• Three. No blank is left between editions. 2021 was suspended for one year, but commissioned activities, seminars and public-good actions did not stop.

Three Turns, None of Them in the Hall

None of the three was the Forum “wanting to change”; each was the result of the external industrial environment changing first. What the Forum does is to put the question on the table before the change has taken shape.

The world today is undergoing changes unseen in a century, and the global map of economy and innovation is undergoing profound structural reconstruction.

2026: the Shenzhen moment of Asia-Pacific cooperation

The 2026 Asia-Pacific leaders' informal meeting will be held in Shenzhen, opening a historic window for the Forum's next leap. Its significance lies not in a single meeting but in the density of agendas, people and capital that persists for years around it.

What the Forum has to do is neither to repeat the official agenda nor to market by riding the momentum, but to provide a civil setting in which meetings can continue and delivery can continue.

“A summit is a moment; a forum is daily life. Moments pass; daily life is what decides how long a platform can live.

Three Irreplaceables

The Forum does not talk about “whom it resembles”, only about “who it is”. After eleven years it stands in three positions that others have not held at the same time.

Top-Level Positioning, Mission and Vision

Mission: rooted in the Shenzhen Bay highland, linked to the Asia-Pacific innovation network, break down the barriers between basic research, disruptive technology, industrial capital, governance and international cooperation; carry the landing of Asia-Pacific outcomes.

• The most influential civil science-and-industry summit in Asia-Pacific;
• One of the main platforms carrying outcomes under the Asia-Pacific cooperation framework;
• The source of thinking and the high ground of project matchmaking for disruptive technologies;
• A landmark IP of the Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou corridor: “attend the Shenzhen Bay Forum, and see global frontier technology”.

Technology itself has no standpoint, but the use of technology certainly does. When an algorithm can decide who obtains a loan, who is referred to a doctor and who is screened out in recruitment, it is no longer a neutral tool but a carrier for allocating power.

“Technology for good” is not a moral slogan but a set of concrete requirements: technology must be explainable, the cost must be seen, the benefit must be shared, and the risk must be placed up front.

“We reject two kinds of romance: one that believes technology will automatically bring good, and one that believes it will inevitably bring disaster. The real answer is: look at who uses it, for whom, and who supervises.

Four social propositions that AI brings

Three Boundaries

After “new quality productive forces” entered policy documents, forums of every kind began to talk about it. But a civil platform must first draw three boundaries.

Hold these three boundaries and the civil identity is an advantage. The most precious asset of the past eleven years is precisely that “when it speaks, people believe it”. Co-governance does not mean satisfying everyone; it means that every blind spot has someone to cover it.

Public-Good Legacy: Tianyu Liufang and Baguang

The Forum's public good has three handles: “Tianyu Liufang · Go Read” for rural reading and scientific enlightenment, “Green Footprints” for international environmental protection, and the “Baguang Action” for coastline cleaning. Its method is “books + classes + money”.

“Green Footprints” has continued for more than ten years without interruption. Greatness is never a flash of light, but writing guardianship step by step into streams, forests and coastlines. The Baguang Action has turned a coast once full of plastic into clean vegetation and mudflats.