The Canton Tower Science & Technology Conference, an event focused on emerging technologies, opened its 2020 edition on Tuesday in Guangzhou, the capital of South China's Guangdong province.

The conference, an event jointly hosted by the science and technology authority and IDG Asia, brought more than 200 guests from the world's leading technology enterprises, international organizations and government authorities to discuss topics related to emerging technologies, such as 5G, the industrial internet, public health, venture capital, industrial design and artificial intelligence.

"The conference has become an important platform to display and share the world's leading technologies," said Zhu Dongfang, president of IDG Asia.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to affect the global economy, leading technologies would play an important role for the world to ward off negative impacts brought by the COVID-19, according to Zhu.

The science and technology event, held in Guangzhou for the fifth consecutive year, also has helped boost Guangzhou's strength in technology innovation by attracting enterprises, manufacturers and scientific research institutions to invest and settle in the city, said Wang Dong, vice-mayor of Guangzhou.