What’s Hot in Cloud, AI, and Blockchain? Weekly Tech Highlights

Cloud Connect China 2021 Conference

The 9th Global Cloud Computing Conference – China edition (Cloud Connect China 2021) will be held in Ningbo from June 16‑18, guided by the Ningbo municipal government and organized by Informa Markets. The three‑day event, themed “New Technology Empowering Dual‑Cycle Development,” includes closed‑door meetings, summit forums, technical sessions, the Cloud Ding Award ceremony, and offline exhibitions to support digital transformation.

Accelerating Standards for Big Data, Cloud, AI, and Blockchain

The National Development and Reform Commission released the “Accelerate Cultivation of New‑type Consumption Implementation Plan,” outlining 24 policy measures and emphasizing the development of standards for next‑generation information technologies, including big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

China’s First Blockchain‑Focused Forensic Institution

On March 28, the State Grid Blockchain Judicial Identification Center was established in Beijing, becoming the nation’s first forensic institution featuring blockchain technology. It aims to accelerate blockchain applications in energy digital governance, exploring legal‑tech services for carbon trading, green power traceability, and renewable energy consumption.

“Dual‑Gigabit” Network Development Action Plan (2021‑2023)

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a plan to coordinate the development of “dual‑gigabit” networks (1 Gbps fixed broadband and 1 Gbps 5G). It proposes optimizing data‑center interconnectivity, enhancing network architecture, and adding at least two national‑level internet backbone points, positioning dual‑gigabit as a key new‑infrastructure component.

Microsoft Edge PWA Visual Consistency

Edge will introduce a “Window Controls Overlay” feature, allowing developers to customize the title‑bar area of Progressive Web Apps so that PWAs visually match native applications, freeing up screen space on small devices.

China’s Cloud Infrastructure Spending Hits Record

Canalys reported that China’s cloud infrastructure services expenditure grew 62 % YoY in Q4 2020, reaching $5.8 billion, driven by pandemic‑induced digital transformation, rapid economic recovery, and rising demand for AI‑enabled cloud solutions.

Involution: A New Neural Network Operator

The paper “Involution: Beyond Convolution and Self‑Attention” proposes a lightweight, efficient operator that swaps the spatial invariance of convolution for channel invariance and spatial specificity, achieving higher accuracy and efficiency across vision tasks.

Reinforcement Learning for Risk‑Aware Conversational Retrieval (WWW 2021)

The authors present a risk‑aware conversational agent that decides when to ask clarification questions versus providing answers, trained via reinforcement learning without explicit annotation, improving answer quality and user experience in dialogue‑based search.