Themed "Pooling Together Wisdom and Strength," the Smart China Expo (SCE) 2023 opened in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Monday.

Aiming at more international participation and being more specialized and market-oriented, the three-day expo features varied activities, including summits, exhibitions, forums and contests, with a focus on intelligent connected new energy vehicles (ICNEVs).

Connected vehicles refer to those that can bidirectionally communicate with outside systems by connecting to a network.

Forward-looking insights and best practices from top experts, professionals and industry leaders can be expected.

More than 500 companies have registered to have their latest technologies and products displayed in the exhibition spanning 80,000 square meters.

Compared with previous ones, the exhibition this year lays more emphasis on ICNEVs. More than 60 percent of the participating enterprises set up ICNEV-themed booths, Geng Wenjun, head of the exhibition group of the SCE 2023, told Chongqing Daily.

Four professional sectors are highlighted during the expo, namely ICNEV, intelligent equipment and manufacturing, new-generation information technology and smart cities.

The ICNEV sector will dig into 12 subfields, such as power battery, electric power steering, intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, road-to-vehicle network connection, and chip and software, with over 300 industrial magnates, Changan Automobile, Seres and FinDreams Battery, for example, to demonstrate innovative achievements, cutting-edge technologies and products, and the latest solutions.

Aiming at world-class ICNEV industrial cluster

Chongqing, as an important domestic automobile production base, has taken concrete and targeted steps in the ICNEV industry, a new direction for global automotive industry development.

The government has made ICNEV one of its three dominant industrial clusters, along with electronic information manufacturing and advanced materials.

Last September, the municipality formulated a development plan, proposing to build a world-class ICNEV industrial cluster in 2030.

The city has gathered six leading automobile enterprises – Changan, Great Wall Motor, Geely, Ford, Li Auto and Seres – together with 200 supporting enterprises in the industrial chain.

In the first half of this year, Chongqing has witnessed a vigorous development momentum of ICNEV, with a year-on-year increase of 9.6 percent in output and 33.8 percent in output value, contributing 85 percent to the growth of the output value of the city's automobile industry, according to Chongqing Daily.

It has been accelerating the construction of a state-level pilot zone for connected vehicles and is also building itself into a national demonstration city for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.