Visitors try out an intelligent piano displayed at the 24th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo, held from Sept 24-28 in Beijing. ZHANG LINWAN/CHINA DAILY

The 2021 Zhongguancun Forum showcased the unending possibilities that can be brought by advanced applications of science and technology at its many exhibitions and competitions, according to the organizers of the event.

A part of the forum, the 24th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo, was held from Sept 24-28 in Beijing's Haidian district.

The exhibition covered an area of 15,000 square meters and included five display areas. A total of 576 enterprises and institutions both domestic and international participated in the event, the organizers said.

This year's exhibition highlighted achievements that have been made in the capital during the process of the government building the city into an international hub of sci-tech innovation.

With the country focusing on independent development and research, domestic tech companies and research institutes took center stage to display their latest products and technologies.

One of five key sci-tech achievements announced at the 2021 ZGC Forum, the nonliquid helium dilution refrigerator－a high-end scientific instrument that can create an environment close to absolute zero, attracted attention.

With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics fast approaching, the Olympic display area was a popular attraction at the exhibition.

Olympic exhibits covered every aspect of the Games including training, transportation, safety and broadcasting.

An intelligent buffet table, jointly developed by the General Administration of Sports of China and the sci-tech company Sovell, is able to identify athletes, automatically record their daily meals and nutrition and generate analysis reports accordingly.

The display area for healthcare and medicine also attracted many visitors. Among the exhibits were frontier medical technologies, surgical robots and intelligent equipment for physical examination.

Launched in 2017, the Zhongguancun International Frontier Technology Innovation Competition was held at the ZGC Forum for the first time.

The theme of this year's competition was to boost the digital economy with frontier technology.

It focused on fields including artificial intelligence, health sciences and integrated circuits, and sought to find startups or teams with cutting-edge projects, the organizers said.

The competition attracted more than 1,000 projects, and the top 15 in every field made it through to the finals.

The final contests for biomedicine and integrated circuits took place from Monday to Tuesday.

Finalists included a medical nanobot that is able to deliver medicine in animals, an AI chip for cloud computing and a three-dimensional active noise control technology.

Two companies from overseas were selected for the finals: Cantabio Pharmaceuticals from Canada and Pixel Biotech from Germany.

The top two projects in every field will take part in the competition's grand final to be held in early December.

The winner will be awarded a prize of 600,000 yuan ($92,800) and second and third places will receive 300,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan respectively.

Organizers will provide other excellent competitors with strong support including preferential loans and entrepreneur coaching to aid the transformation of their technologies.

So far, the competition has offered 156 startups or teams financial aid totaling 400 million yuan.