An autonomous car travels on a road during a test in Beijing in March 2018. Photo: IC

A Chinese science forum has released a list of 10 "forefront hotspot issues" in the information technology sector including autonomous driving and certain types of artificial intelligence, according to media reports. 

The list was released at an information and science forum during the 2019 annual meeting of the China Association for Science and Technology, domestic news portal chinanews.com reported on Sunday from Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The research and market application of autonomous driving vehicles' control operating systems was one of the 10 highlighted issues.

According to the forum, the autonomous driving operating system is a "major strategic demand" of China and the country's automobile industry. It is also the "core" of China's solutions to the most critical strategic problems in the country.

Domestic industry giants are undertaking research into related technologies. On Friday, Dongfeng Motor Corp announced plans to set up an innovation laboratory in partnership with China's internet giant Tencent to research cutting-edge car technologies including autonomous driving and intelligent connected vehicles.

The forum also included natural language understanding on the list, saying that research in this area will be of great significance to safeguard the security of China's national information content. 

Other technologies such as the integration of artificial intelligence and biological intelligence and interferometric optical imaging technology were on also placed the list.

China has been mounting whole-of-society efforts to drive technology development. On June 24, Vice Premier Liu He visited the Chinese Academy of Sciences and said the organization should seek breakthroughs in core technologies and pursue scientific cooperation with the developed countries.


Newspaper headline: Science forum announces list of hot issues in information technology