Recently, under the guidance of the Ministry of Education College Computer Course Teaching Steering Committee, Chinese Academy of engineering, and the Silk Road University Alliance, the 2nd IKCEST “The Belt and Road” International Big Data Competition and the 6th Baidu & Xi’an Jiaotong University Big Data Competition, hosted jointly by the International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology under the Auspices of UNESCO (IKCEST), China Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology (CKCEST), Baidu, Xi'an Jiaotong University, has entered the semi-finals. On July 20, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and expert in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Wang Chen, CTO of Baidu Wang Haifeng, Vice President of Xi 'an Jiaotong University Zheng Qinghua, Director from Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University Zhang Wenhong, and other experts provided instructions and encouragement to the participating teams from their respective professional fields online.

Xu Jing, General Manager of Baidu brand AI Marketing Department, also expressed her expectations for the competition and the participating teams as a representative of Baidu. She said: "Baidu International Big data competition has always adhered to high standard, and has mined and delivered tens of thousands of outstanding AI talents for the industry for five consecutive years. For the first time, this year's competition focuses on the prediction of the spread trend of highly pathogenic contagious diseases, and hopes to promote the close combination of AI talent training and social practice, so that students can truly contribute their own strength to major social issues. Since last year, the big data competition, in response to the 'Belt and Road' initiative, has presented a more open attitude to the world. I hope that young elite from different universities in the world can show the centripetal force of the community of human destiny and make the world more beautiful with technology.

As one of the most professional and authoritative university big data competitions in China, the international big data competition has four pillars: strong support from the government, professional guidance from experts, leading enterprises in the AI industry, and double first-class universities. Its influence radiates to the world's famous universities. This year's competition, themed "Forecasting the future incidence of highly pathogenic contagious diseases", is for the first time combined with medicine to help forecast and control the spread of infectious diseases by using big data technology, so as to enhance the awareness and ability of human society to cooperate against risks. At the same time, through the competition, a group of compound talents, who understand both AI and medicine, are selected for the country to play the technical value of AI in the medical and health system.

At present, the competition has entered the sprint stage of the second round. In order to give more professional and effective guidance to the team, CAE Member Wang Chen expressed his views from the perspective of medical and health field. He believes that the forecast of the spread trend of highly pathogenic contagious infections is a high-dimensional multiple equation. In addition to analyzing the characteristics of the virus itself, it is also necessary to pay attention to social distance, weather and other factors; while the trend forecast of big data is to forecast the whole result of a number of things with logical relationship through algorithms, mathematical simulation models and computer information technology. In this regard, Wang Haifeng from the perspective of artificial intelligence, gave a more integrated point of view, he said: "Combined with the algorithm of artificial intelligence, a variety of potential laws of highly pathogenic contagious diseases can be mined out from a large number of data, which is of great value for the prediction of its transmission trend. Not only that, the value of AI technology during an epidemic is also seen in many ways, such as using robots to help deliver food and medicine in an attempt to reduce infection, and using AI technology to help with remote diagnosis and treatment.”

When the two sides discussed the integrated development of AI+ medical, they also expressed their concerns and expectations for "interdisciplinary talents". Wang Chen said, "It is crucial for someone to understand medicine as well as information science and big data." Wang Haifeng, who leads Baidu in the forefront of AI industry, also believes that "in the future, to better break the ice between medical science, information science and big data-related technologies, training interdisciplinary talents may play a greater role."

Nowadays, big data has become an important means for everyone, every unit and governments at all levels are to establish a modern governance system to control learning objectives, research objectives and work objectives. As Zheng Qinghua, Vice President of Xi'an Jiaotong University, said, "This year's competition task can provide scientific and effective support tools for epidemic forecast, prevention, and control as well as for the realization of normal life study as soon as possible through the students' knowledge, creation and research of new methods using big data."

Zhang Wenhong, from Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, expressed his expectation for the players entering the second round: "We are very much looking forward to the combination of talents in the field of big data and medical field, so as to provide very good data for epidemic prevention experts in our country. And in the big data competition, we can also give a very accurate estimate of the epidemic situation in the world. In the future, we can have a say in the forecast of data in the world. "

It is understood that the international big data competition has been successfully held five times. With the increasingly important status of AI technology, countries all over the world attach great importance to the cultivation of AI talents. High level and hyper competitive international competitions have become the stage for AI talents to show their strength. With nearly 5000 participants forming more than 3000 teams, the competition has attracted students from 580 colleges and universities from 22 countries in five continents, in which the top 42 double first-class universities in China are 100% included. The international big data is open to countries along the “Belt and Road” initiative lines. It will find talents in big data artificial intelligence all over the world through competition and achieve the goal of a joint effort from governments, industries and universities to promote the research, application and development of big data industry, further consolidate the theoretical basis and practical foundation of the competition and speed up the training of top-notch AI innovative talents.

Integrated development under the background of "new infrastructure", a world-class stage for cutting-edge talents in artificial intelligence

In fact, the theme "Forecasting the future incidence of highly pathogenic contagious diseases” is not only a new attempt of AI + medical integration development, but also a positive response to the urgent social problems in combination with the epidemic hot spots. Effective prevention and control of infectious diseases is a common challenge facing all mankind. Forecasting the spread trend and speed of contagious diseases accurately through big data, especially the spatiotemporal correlation characteristics of data, will greatly help human society control contagious diseases and ensure social public health safety.

It is reported that Baidu, as one of the organizers of this event, provides open source framework for deep learning of Paddlepaddle and other data resources for all contestants to help build and train their data models. It is worth mentioning that Baidu Paddlepaddle deep learning platform will be used in the competition. The organizing committee will also provide the Tesla V100 GPU card for 100 hours on Baidu Brain AI Studio for free, and the contestants can log into the competition platform baidu Brain AI Studio to activate and use.

It can be said that this competition not only inherits the original intention of the previous five competitions to consolidate the talent base of big data for China, but is also an effective practice for the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents in the background of the development of "new infrastructure". From the setting of competition questions, the selection of experts and consultants, as well as the more professional guidance for the players in the competition process, it can be seen that Baidu, as a leader of science and technology enterprises, attaches great importance to the competition, and bears the social responsibility of participating in social public issues and delivering theoretical and practical talents for the country.

According to the official website, the competition is divided into three stages: preliminary competition, second round competition and final + award ceremony. The competition is open to participants from all over the world. Universities, scientific research institutions, enterprises, entrepreneur teams, individuals and other personnel can sign up for the competition. Each team has 1-5 people, and each team has at least one college student. Finally, the winner is selected and the scoring process is updated in real time. At present, the competition has entered the final sprint stage of the second round. For more information, please visit the official website（ http://www.ikcest.org/bigdata2020 ）.