Shapiro in Shanghai Praises China's Trade Initiative, France's Tech Efforts; Companies Discuss Tech
SHANGHAI -- CTA CEO Gary Shapiro praised China’s Belt and Road trade initiative as he kicked off CES Asia Wednesday before the opening keynote address by Wan Biao, Huawei chief operating officer-consumer BG. “China has adopted a strategy that makes a lot of sense,” Shapiro said, citing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision to connect Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes, and beyond, through a trade and infrastructure network.
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Trade between China and other Belt and Road countries has been rising. China’s trade strategy is “similar to a strategy the United States had but even better in some ways,” Shapiro said, citing the country’s investments infrastructure, investment in education “and a focus on technology and innovation.”
Chinese government emphasis on innovation and its five-year plan will emphasize important emerging industries and encourage public entrepreneurship, Shapiro said. The plan calls for upgrading technology and the internet and further developing artificial intelligence and the IoT, he said. It will encourage the digitization required for acceleration of smart cities, he said.
The China tech goods market is projected to reach 2.1 trillion RMB this year, growing another 5 percent in 2018, said Shapiro, citing GfK China research. “That’s why it's so important to bring all the factions of the ecosystem together in one place.”
Shapiro acknowledged “major global shifts” occurring: “This is an era of political and technological disruptions and we see major political changes and global challenges worldwide.” He expressed enthusiasm for the “positive” first meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi. Elections of “nontraditional candidates” such as Trump and France's President Emmanuel Macron demonstrate “a changing landscape politically, as does Brexit,” Shapiro said. Trump and Macron “were political candidates that took major risks,” he said, adding that risk-taking is “what entrepreneurship and innovation is about.”
Shapiro highlighted France’s efforts to embrace innovation and technology, noting Macron has attended CES and made a commitment to technology. He praised the French government for its backing of the French Tech startup incubator.
Shapiro said technology is in a position to help solve global problems by addressing skills gaps in education, plus healthcare, transportation, communication and food production. “Just about every major significant problem, including even terrorism, are having solutions presented by innovations,” he said.
Huawei used the opening keynote address to launch an all-metal, lightweight notebook PC series with Intel i5 and i7 Core processors, a Dolby Atmos Sound System and a thickness of 0.49 inch.
PCs are a maturing category, but innovation is still alive, said Microsoft’s Peter Han, vice president-partner devices and solutions, during a Wednesday keynote speech. Pens are becoming a bigger part of the laptop experience with the new Asus ZenBook Flip S and Samsung Notebook 9 Pro, and a commercial PC from Toshiba has mics based on Cortana technology that filter out ambient noise to improve audio and video conferencing experiences, he said.