Tencent, one of China's internet service giants, and the Palace Museum will jointly set up the Palace Museum-Tencent Innovation Lab. The project was announced at the “Culture+Technology” International Forum on November 29.
The lab will create forward-looking and replicable digital applications to protect, research and display cultural relics, in the spirit of continuing traditional Chinese culture.
Tencent will bring together technological experts from Tencent Cloud, Tencent YouTu Lab, AI Lab and WeChat voice recognition feature to work with the Palace Museum in artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and other areas, in a bid to provide smart solutions and technological supports for preserving World Heritage.
Technology not only enables new ways of cultural creation, but also enhances access to historical and cultural assets. Major museums around the world, including the Louvre Museum and the Palace Museum, are embracing digitization.
Tencent has recently introduced a super-resolution imaging technology called TSR, using AI recognition and restoration technology to let users view high-definition pictures without having to download the original images.
The collaboration between Tencent and the Palace Museum can be traced back to 2016, when Tencent’s creativity competition, Next Idea, encouraged young contestants to make use of the intellectual properties of Palace Museum to create emoticons, games and comic strips.
In September, Tencent launched a mobile application "Museum Officer", joining hands with 100 museums through the Tencent Art-Plus Project to help users navigate the museums with the app.
"Museum Officer" can now be used by visitors at the Guanshanyue Art Museum and the Yuezhong Museum of Historical Images in Shenzhen to get the stories behind the exhibits when they take a picture of an item. Such digital applications are also expected to help stimulate interest in visiting museums and channel traffic to museums by leveraging Tencent’s online traffic.
