People interact with virtual marine organisms at a whale-themed exhibition of National Maritime Museum of China in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Aug. 26, 2023. [Xinhua/Sun Fanyue]

BEIJING -- The development of China's cultural industry was one of the highlights at the 2023 Beijing Culture Forum, which concluded Friday.

At a parallel forum, themed "Innovative technology gives new impetus to cultural development," representatives from government departments, universities, enterprises and various other institutions shared their views on the development of China's cultural industry within the context of the digital economy.

According to some experts, the digital economy is reshaping the development mode and industrial ecology of the cultural industry, bringing opportunities for the industry's high-quality development.

Wang Yiming, vice chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said the digital economy has served as a new driving force for the high-quality development of the cultural industry, and digital transformation has become a new engine propelling high-quality development of the industry.

Wang added that digital technology has accelerated the innovation of various aspects of the cultural industry, such as content, which has not only improved the production efficiency of the industry but also fostered new business forms.

Huang Zhijian, chairman of China Publishing Group Co., Ltd., said scientific and technological changes represented by internet technology have vigorously promoted the innovation and development of the publishing sector.

The variety of books published annually in China has significantly improved, Huang added, noting that through new technological means published content is no longer confined to texts or images but can be presented in a three-dimensional and concrete form for "immersive" reading experiences.

The digital economy has also promoted innovation in cultural consumption patterns. Participating experts said that cultural consumption has moved from offline to online, enriching the consumption scenes and giving rise to more virtual cultural products, such as online concerts and cloud exhibitions, with the scale of digital cultural consumption continuing to expand.

According to the 2022 China internet development report, the scale of China's digital cultural industry reached 1.8 trillion yuan (about 251 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, accounting for 51.4 percent of the cultural industry, emerging as the leading force in the industry.

Digital technology is also facilitating the protection and development of traditional culture. An increasing amount of cultural heritage is being digitized, making it more readily accessible and comprehensible to the public.

Ren Yuxin, chief operating officer of Tencent Group, said that in recent years, Tencent has used digital technology to enhance the "sense of presence" and interactivity of cultural display and communication, while constantly optimizing the user experience of traditional cultural heritage.

The public can now access an interactive digital platform showcasing a virtual replica of the Library Cave in Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Jointly developed by the Dunhuang Academy and Tencent, the platform digitally reproduces the historical scenes dating back over a century of the Library Cave through advanced gaming technologies.

While the digitally empowered cultural industry holds great potential, it still faces certain challenges, necessitating further efforts.

Zhang Ping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said it is necessary to enhance the support capacity of new infrastructure of cultural industry, make good use of relevant policies, platforms and technologies, boost the development of the 5G-based industrial internet and mobile internet infrastructure, and improve the overall infrastructure of the cultural industry.