On the morning of December 18, “Promote Internet Development through Technology and Standards” session of the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit was held. Co-hosted by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) and Baidu, the session served as a platform for high-end dialogues on the opportunities and challenges in the process of internet development advanced by internet technology and standards, bringing together internet technology heavyweights such as Father of Internet, Father of German’s Internet and founder of Internet Software Consortium (ISC), as well as internet standards experts from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), IEEE, and China Communications Standards Association (CCSA). 

The session was one of the three sub-forums of the Forum on Internet Technology and Standards. It consisted of two parts: “Technology Promotes the Development of the Internet” and “Standards Promote the Development of the Internet”, and the two moderators were Kong Ning, Director of the Department of International Affairs of CNNIC and Secretary-General of Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC), and Tobias Gondrom, Chairman of the Board of Directors, OWASP. 

The first part featured high-end dialogues between Robert Elliot Kahn, Father of Internet, Werner Zorn, Father of German’s Internet, Paul Vixie, founder of Internet Software Consortium (ISC), Yan Baoping, first Chinese Director of Internet Society (ISOC), Li Xiaodong, Researcher and Director of CNNIC, and Wang Jin, Senior Vice President of Baidu and General Manager of Self-Drive Car Department. They discussed the challenges and opportunities brought by mobile internet, Internet of Things and other emerging industries to traditional internet technology architecture such as domain name system and search engine, and shared their insight about new internet technologies in the next decade. 

Participants believe that the Internet of Things represents the future trend of the internet, and presents higher requirements for the domain name system, prompting progress in its security and timeliness. Li Xiaodong said that a trend of the internet development was the internationalization of technology protocols, such as Chinese domain names and Chinese e-mail addresses. Wang Jing predicted that in ten years, 80% of cars would be driverless and by then, each self-drive car would be like a mobile computer connected in real time to other cars and transport systems. 

In the second part, experts of internet standards, including Qian Hualin, inductee of the Internet Hall of Fame and author of the first international standard for Chinese domain names, Bruce Kraemer, President of IEEE Standards Association (SA), Yang Zemin, Secretary-General of China Communications Standards Association (CCSA), James Seng, co-chair of IETF IDN Working Group, and Li Xing, first Chinese director of Internet Architecture Board (IAB), made lively discussions on such topics as how to improve the internet standards formulation mechanism and how to promote the application deployments of internet standards. 

Experts agreed that while internet standards are key to ensuring connectivity of the internet, it should not be excessively specific or take much time to develop; otherwise, it would hinder the fast development of the internet. For fundamental internet standards, however, sufficient patience is required in order to ensure the quality. Experts also called for efforts to develop professionals of internet standards and work together to improve the efficiency and quality of internet standardization.