The World Internet Science and Technology Museum. Photo: Yang Sheng/GT

The 2023 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit opened on Wednesday with thousands of visitors heading to the watertown in East China's Zhejiang Province to explore the World Internet Science and Technology Museum, the world's first large internet-themed museum.     

A permanent venue for the World Internet Conference, the museum officially opened in Wuzhen on Tuesday. As the world's first science and technology museum themed around the "global internet," the museum unveils the history and development of the internet and showcases the forefront achievements and applications in internet technology.

With an area of about 43,000 square meters, the museum has six permanent exhibition areas, showcasing the key technologies, hallmark events and important personnel of the global internet industry, and outlining the development of the internet, according to the museum.

The six exhibition areas are: Innovation of a Globally Shared Platform; Supporting Digital Development; Shaping Human Civilizations; Intelligently Linking Air, Land and Sea; Promoting Digital Technology Innovation; Unifying a Shared Future for Mankind. 

The museum has proven very popular among locals, with some visitors saying they specifically came from the counties around Wuzhen to visit the museum with their family as they want their children to be educated and received valuable experiences about cutting-edge technology. 

Visitors can interact with complicated robots that are able to shake hands, dance, sing, make coffee and provide tour guide services and explore the huge exhibition that showcases the art of China's famous Mogao Caves using digital technology and mechanically powered walls.

Visitors will not only find products made by foreign companies like the world's first 2-nanometer technology chip from IBM and Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus, also known as the Tesla Bot, but will also see 20 technologies from the Ant Group, which supported the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games' digital ignition ceremony, Baidu's latest AI chatbot WenXin Yiyan, or ERNIE Bot, and WenXin Yige, an AI platform for artistic and creative support. 

Xu Yingwang, an attendee at the summit and an internet expert, told the Global Times that the museum is a significant venue for people to understand the past, the present and the future of the internet, and also showcase China's confidence to be further connected to the world via the internet.

"Although China didn't invent the internet, with a huge base of at least 1 billion web users in the digital world, and the capability to safeguard its cyberspace as its sovereign territory, China will definitely become, and to some extent, has already become a leading country in the internet field," said Xu, who's also an entrepreneur who runs a short-video company.