The exhibition is also a prelude to the Fifth World Internet Conference, which will be held from Wednesday to Friday. As part of the country's efforts to boost the digital economy, the conference is themed "Creating a Digital World for Mutual Trust and Collective Governance Toward a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace" this year.

A large number of government delegates, international organization representatives, leading internet entrepreneurs and experts from all around the globe have been invited to the expo. They include Turing Award winner Whitfield Diffie and Andrew Ng, founder and CEO of the AI-based online learning platform Deeplearning.ai.

A string of sub-forums are also scheduled, covering a wide range of topics related to AI, 5G, financial technology, cybersecurity, the digital economy as well as the internet and public services.

"The World Internet Conference is a high-tech event that has attracted the attention of people all around the world," said Hocking Xu, CEO of AInnovation, an artificial intelligence startup. The company will join the World Internet Conference's "Big data and artificial intelligence empowering the real economy" topic discussion.

"Big data, born from the internet, is now the driving force behind the development of artificial intelligence. The later stages of the internet era will belong to the AI-empowered industrial internet," Xu said. "We hope to work with our partners in many industries to create an 'AI plus' era and use AI to further the intelligent transformation of the real economy."

The conference will also release the latest versions of two blue books: the World Internet Development Report 2018 and China Internet Development Report 2018. They will include evaluations of internet development in key countries, as well as Chinese provinces and cities, focusing on the latest technologies, applications and development of the sector.

Cheng Yu contributed to this story.