First artificial intelligence gala held in Beijing

Photo shows a show jointly performed by students from the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts and a digital figure named Mu Lan. (Photo/Huangfu Wanli)

On the night of Aug. 28, 2023, People's Daily Online hosted its inaugural gala featuring artificial intelligence (AI) in Beijing, showcasing cutting-edge achievements in and innovative applications of AI through a series of artistic performances with sci-tech, intelligent, and futuristic elements.

The gala opened with a digitally rendered dance performance adapted from the sensational dance show "Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting" produced by the Palace Museum, People's Daily Online and China Oriental Performing Arts Group.

Photo shows a digitally rendered dance performance. (Photo/Zhao Qian)

During the performance, virtual dancers moved gracefully on "rivers" and in "mountains" and "painting scrolls" across the stage, amazing the audience with technology-empowered rendering of traditional Chinese culture.

The event marked the debut of Bysearch, a content security-oriented cross-modal video search engine. Personified as a teenage boy, Bysearch time-traveled across eras to engage in intergenerational dialogue.

Bysearch, a content security-oriented cross-modal video search engine personified as a teenage boy, makes his official debut at the first gala featuring artificial intelligence (AI) hosted by People's Daily Online. (Photo/Li Danyang)

Versatile AI performers brought an audio-visual feast to the audience. LUCY, China's first "album-grade" AI singer, collaborated with other virtual idols to deliver beautiful songs. Chen Shuiruo, a virtual singer empowered by technologies including neural rendering, open-domain conversation and AI singing voice generation, vividly interpreted the beauty of traditional Chinese culture through a song performance.

Students from the Northeastern University stage an artificial intelligence-empowered performance at the first gala featuring artificial intelligence hosted by People's Daily Online. (Photo/Sun Haifeng)

Intel-backed 3-on-3 basketball matchups "transported" players across space using motion capture technology. The metaverse-style exhibition synthesized virtual and real environments for an immersive spectator experience.

Virtual performers, robot, and human performers pose for a group photo at the first gala featuring artificial intelligence hosted by People's Daily Online. (Photo/Weng Qiyu)

Leveraging advanced 3D creation tools, movie-grade 720° VR 8K digitization, among other state-of-the art technologies, highly realistic virtual character Lin Jiayi offered a new interpretation of the classic novel "Dream of Red Mansions,” and Yuanmingyuan, also known as the Old Summer Palace, was breathtakingly restored in "Scenes of Four Seasons in Yuanmingyuan.”

The event also highlighted the infinite possibilities of AI technology with a good number of AI innovations made by young people.

A poster for the AI gala.