On November 20, 2023, at 4:00 pm, the 20th Forum on Digital Technology and Economic Finance Frontiers was successfully held. Professor Wei Xu from Renmin University of China was invited to give a lecture titled "Financial Technology: From Big Data to Big Models" to students and faculty at our university. Associate Professor Yaqi Liu from the School of Information Engineering at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law moderated the lecture, and students and faculty from six colleges including the School of Information Engineering and the School of Finance attended the lecture.

At the beginning of the lecture, Associate Professor Yaqi Liu briefly introduced Professor Wei Xu's background to the participants and expressed her heartfelt gratitude to him for taking the time to give a lecture to our students and faculty despite his busy schedule.  

During the lecture, Professor Wei Xu first introduced Internet plus, multimodal data and related knowledge of multimodal data analysis technology, introduced its evolution process, listed innovative applications such as "bank transaction fraud detection" and "vehicle insurance precise pricing", and led teachers and students to deeply understand the current application scenarios of multimodality.

Professor Wei Xu introduced the rapid development of large models in today's era, pointed out new research directions and research ideas, and suggested that replacing small models with large models to solve some problems may have better results and research prospects. Finally, he introduced the research achievements of large models and the development route of existing popular large models.

Finally, our teachers and students had an active academic exchange with Professor Wei Xu, who answered their questions and puzzles in detail. After the exchange, Associate Professor Yaqi Liu expressed her heartfelt thanks to Professor Wei Xu for his wonderful sharing.

Speaker Introduction

Wei Xu, male, doctor, Director, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Economic Information Management, School of Information Science, Renmin University of China. Director of the Smart Campus Research Center and Deputy Director of the Smart City Research Center, Renmin University of China. Executive Director of China Society of Information Economics, director of China Society of Systems Engineering, deputy Secretary General of Information Systems Engineering Committee, editorial board member of Journal of Systems Engineering, guest editor of Internet Research, System Engineering Theory and Practice, Management Review and other domestic and foreign journals. His research interests include financial technology, business analytics, and intelligent social governance. He has presided over a number of projects at or above provincial and ministerial level such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Natural Science Foundation and Beijing Social Science Foundation. He has published more than 150 research papers and 6 books in top domestic and foreign journals and conferences such as ISR, POMS and IJCAI. He has won a number of teaching and research awards such as the second prize of national higher education teaching achievements, the first prize of Beijing Higher Education Teaching Achievements, and the second prize of Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award.

Frontier Forum for Digital Technology and Finance introduction

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic acceleration in a digital revolution in economic sectors and a rapid adoption of the new generation of information technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, etc. These technologies effectively set off the digital economy. It has become a key driving force in creating global economic growth, improving the modernization level of governance capabilities, and promoting high-quality economic development in China. In particular, digital finance is the most important part of the digital economy. To explore the development direction of the cross-integration of digital technology and finance, the Innovation and Talent Base for Digital Technology and Finance is hosting the “Frontier Forum for Digital Technology and Finance”, in collaboration with the School of Finance, Wenlan School of Business, Economics School, School of Information and Safety Engineering, School of Statistics and Mathematics, School of Public Finance and Taxation of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL). This lecture series will invite the well-known scholars at home and abroad in digital technology, digital economy, digital finance, and other related fields as guest speakers, providing an open and cutting-edge academic exchange platform for interdisciplinary research on digital technology and finance.