The Third Global Forum on Development of Computer Science (GFDCS 2022) was held in a hybrid online and offline format at Tsinghua University on October 28, and was livestreamed worldwide bilingually.

Chen Yuan, Vice Chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, delivered a speech to the forum through video. Wang Hongwei, Vice President of Tsinghua University, and Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, winner of the Turing Award and Dean of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University, attended the forum and delivered speeches.

The forum was presided over by Yin Xia, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University. The theme of the forum was “Challenges and Opportunities of Computer Science in the New Era”.

The heads/deans from more than 30 top computer science departments/schools worldwide, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Cambridge, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Beihang University, and the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, participated in this forum, the livestream of which was watched by more than 7,000 scholars worldwide.

Chen Yuan delivers a video speech

Chen Yuan pointed out that it was of great importance that, in the face of profound changes unseen in a century, Tsinghua University had actively built a cooperation platform for friendly exchanges of the global community of computer science so as to make the community more open, shared and united. He hoped that this forum would build consensus on the development of computer science, find new ways of talent cultivation, and provide useful references for the development of global computer science: first, explore the nature of computer science and deeply promote its "connotative" development; second, enrich the "extensional" development concept of computer science by promoting interdisciplinary integration and collaborative innovation; third, build a talent cultivation mechanism for both connotative and extensional development of computer science.

Wang Hongwei delivers a speech

Wang Hongwei extended his best wishes for a complete success of the forum. He noted that the development of computer science requires global cooperation and joint efforts. This forum provides a platform to discuss the fundamentals of computer science, to help improve the quality of talent cultivation, and to promote the development of the computer science discipline globally. He hoped that participants would make full use of the occasion to exchange ideas, enhance mutual understanding, and produce a global view and forward-looking plans for the development of computer science discipline.

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao delivers a speech

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao elaborated on the theme of this year's forum. He said that the development of computer science has been at an unprecedented pace in the past decades. This presents challenges and opportunities in the new era, which requires computer science colleges all over the world to jointly discuss and cope with. He hoped that colleges and universities would strengthen communication and cooperation and strive to promote the development of the computer science discipline.

Panel Discussion on the theme“Challenges and Opportunities of Computer Science in New Era”

The heads/deans of computer science departments/schools from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Cambridge, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and the provost from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology gave keynote speeches on the future directions of computer science, the exploration of talent cultivation mechanisms in computer science, and the interdisciplinary integration among computer science related disciplines. Afterward, Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, Zhang Ya-Qin, Dean of the Institute for AI Industry Research at Tsinghua University, and the distinguished speakers had a panel discussion on the theme“Challenges and Opportunities of Computer Science in New Era”.

Yin Xia presides over the forum

The Global Forum on Development of Computer Science is a high-level international forum on discipline development held by Tsinghua University. The forum aims to explore the nature of the computer science discipline and promote its development worldwide. In 2018, the First GFDCS was initiated by Tsinghua University during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Department of Computer Science and Technology. In 2021, the Second GFDCS was held successfully, where the heads/deans of computer science departments/schools from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, the National University of Singapore and the Keio University of Japan had delivered keynote speeches under the theme of "Mission and Responsibility of Computer Science", and attracted extensive attentions from computer scientists globally.

Group photo of participants of the forum

Editors: Huang Fei, Li Han