Dubai's Expo 2020 - The Greatest Show? - BBC Click

[Music] this week we're at the biggest show on earth there will be robots poetry and the biggest screen you've ever seen [Music] [Applause] ladies and gents this is the moment you've waited for in the heat of dubai you sweat soaking through the floor [Applause] yes it's a year later than planned but it's finally on world expo 2020 has opened its doors and we're finally on the ground to see the spectacle dubai has turned an enormous section of desert into an event where nearly every country under the sun gets to wave its flag and show off its ideas on a world stage [Music] the hype has been huge so it's time to see if it's lived up to its promise time to find out if this is the greatest show [Music] 192 countries 192 pavilions all different some extravagant some just bonkers and maybe just maybe some world-changing ideas hidden amongst them who knows maybe it's the robot helpers delivering food giving directions and excuse me i'm in charge of the security here please let me prove keeping order maybe it's the giant displays some of the biggest and boldest i've ever seen is it the architecture itself hinting at new ways that we could live and work as we motor on into the 21st century from the great exhibition in crystal palace in london in 1851 through paris's eiffel tower in 1889 brussels atomium in 1958 and seattle's space needle in 62 these world expos are meant to make a statement and leave a mark a legacy for the host country and this enormous expo site will certainly do that even if the exhibits themselves don't stand the test of time the sky garden is a garden in the sky now if you're tempted to ask what is the point i'd suggest you're missing the point in many ways the show is all about the show each pavilion a blank canvas for a country to paint itself as forward thinking and future facing we believe we're doing this for a bigger cause and especially during a time period of covid where we've collectively as humanity faced all the challenges that we have and then to bring the world literally together in one place in one city this event is something very important not only for the uae but for the world at large this is more art than innovation more concepts than creation but anyway it's time to get stuck into this great big noisy colorful event one in which water cascades down into the desert and then at night with the trick of the light it cascades back up again [Music] but bringing water into the desert is a bit of a metaphor for the times we live in sustainability is a big theme at the expo but will societies whose wealth and comfort have been built using fossil fuels really push hard to go green [Music] amongst all of the distinctive designs one building does stand out as an oasis of green this is the singapore pavilion giving us a glimpse of how a city and nature can co-exist now singapore is actually a pretty green place already a lot of its buildings and bridges have an almost post-apocalyptic amount of greenery growing up and this takes that idea to the next level here visitors are taken on a winding canopy walk through a vision of a vertical city garden complete with concept robots that may one day travel around the buildings doing the gardening this is one way that you do not need any man human intervention or to monitor the plants so it's supposed to go around the building high rise areas where you can actually through machine learning identify the plant's growth collect data and also in terms of the senses of whether the environment or the plants are doing well some of the lighting comes from solar tubes basically big empty columns that channel the sunlight from the roof to the floors below and the building itself is covered in 570 solar panels which should provide all of the power it needs for things like the dry mist fans that they use instead of air conditioning the led lights and the irrigation system that would actually provide enough power to power the entire pavilion for the six months and with that solar energy harvested from the sun we are doing desalination we draw groundwater from the ground the groundwater is sailing in nature so we have to do a desalination process also powered by the solar energy and the water that is desalinated is used to irrigate the plants water the plants as well as for normal use for the pavilion with 85 percent of the city-state's population living in the high-rise public housing this is a journey that singapore has been on for a long time and now it's trying its model out in a very different climate the desert [Music] the main problem out here is of course the lack of water but over at the czech pavilion they're making water from thin air or actually capturing moisture from the air you know these packs of silica gel which you find in food and other types of packaging to keep the whole thing dry well the researchers behind this project have redesigned and reformulated this stuff and the new type of silica is capable of capturing moisture from even the driest air usually for the condensation of water if you have the electricity somewhere you need humidity of the air higher than 66 percent our technology can produce water even from the air that is uh drier than 15 percent of humidity the idea is to plonk a few of these solar powered containers anywhere in the desert where you need to create a water source so what you can see is the oils that was created thanks to the water we do produce from the air we are speaking about like three gardens of this size now dubai actually has relatively high humidity and this one unit is producing about 800 liters a day but we were told that even in very dry air it can produce around 100 liters a day an additional system can add minerals to the water to make it drinkable but the main point of this is to autonomously irrigate the soil below to cultivate the land and create greenery if you have this technology in the middle of the desert there is no infrastructure and there's only very dry air you can create all oasis or you can buy the houses and you can make the water potable for human beings [Music] but when you put water into such fine desert sand it drains away immediately this green water however is infused with a special kind of algae that keeps things moist for longer reducing the amount of water needed in the first place and also providing nutrients to help the plants grow water's amazing but of course we shouldn't take it for granted we are over fishing our seas so here's an idea to try and prevent that different fish are apparently attracted to different coloured lights and this led fishing net uses this fact to target certain types of fish whilst repelling unwanted species makers safety nets say its tech could reduce unintended catches by up to 90 percent meanwhile over at the german pavilion researchers from the fraunhofer institute have been looking at water for a different reason one of the problems with renewable energy like wind or solar is how do you store it so you can use it when you need it which might be when it's dark or not very windy now in the past we've seen excess electricity being used to pump water up a mountain so it can flow back down when you need the extra power boost or to send a train up a hill and it rolls back down when you need it well here's an idea from germany where you use energy to pump water out of giant spheres which are under the sea to create a vacuum and then when you need extra electricity you let the water back in which turns a turbine and you get your light bulb moment the researchers hope these can be sunk under the water right next to ocean-based wind farms [Music] hello and welcome to the week in tech it was the week that uk prime minister boris johnson and microsoft founder bill gates struck a 400 million pound partnership to invest in green technology projects bitcoin reached a new all-time high of over 66 000 after starting the year below 29 000 and donald trump announced his new social media network truth social the former u.s president will now have his own online platform after being banned from twitter and facebook in a press release the trump media and technology group said it would fight back against the big tech companies of silicon valley and one of those big tech companies of silicon valley may be headed for a major rebrand according to tech site the verge facebook will imminently be involved in a company name change the verge said it would reflect mark zuckerberg's focus on the metaverse and would be announced on or before the company's upcoming connect conference on october 28th alibaba founder jack ma was spotted on the spanish island of mallorca with his super yacht zen it's the first time the billionaire has been seen outside of china since falling out with regulators in 2020 robot cats were mobilized to help with one restaurant chain's waiter shortage in japan two thousand of these cat-like bellabots will act as replacements for human staff and finally we end on more cat robot advancements this week as mit showed how its cheetah robot can negotiate uneven terrain with gaps and obstacles the new system called teamic or trajectory modulation via impulse control doesn't require pre-mapping of terrain allowing the robot to travel anywhere welcome back to the world expo 2020 in dubai off to italy now where we posed the question if michelangelo had a 3d printer would he have bothered with all that sculpting this is an exact replica of his david which has been scanned in incredible detail to within a hundredth of a millimeter the process took 40 hours and the result was a 3d file that was then sent off to a massive 3d printer and even then the 5 meter tall statue had to be printed in acrylic resin in 14 different pieces which were then glued together and covered in marble dust of course now the data exists from the 3d scan it's not a big leap to think that in the future anyone could download it and 3d print their own version of david the data isn't being made available at the moment though it's been kept under wraps by the museum i guess as an insurance policy just in case anything happens to the original now here's the slight quirk most visitors only get to see david's top half which is a really interesting view that you never normally get did you know for example that david's pupils were heart shaped but to protect his modesty wide ledges stop you from seeing the downstairs department however downstairs there is a luxury lounge where special guests get to see the rest yes only those at the bottom can appreciate the bottom only vips get to see the vip it's a humbling experience now then would you believe that dubai is hosting yet another eye-popper of an event this week and we sent nick quick to gaze upon its vastness this year's biggest tech show jytex has served up a messy platter of tech with everything from virtual reality to artificial intelligence to wall mounted lettuce the stands are stacked with retail concepts aplenty i'm going to be buying all of these so underneath here is a small camera that's constantly taking photographs and when i take an item off the shelf an artificially intelligent algorithm on board the device recognizes that object and adds it to my virtual cart i can't think for the life of me why this completely seamless contraption wouldn't fly off the shelves did it work no technology is actually woven into the fabric of our everyday lives we have autonomous smart police stations we've got government digital services we even have a thriving digital art scene growth is exponential with digital and it's very important for the region and for the country how we get around in the future is also a key theme this year the vehicles here aren't just smart they're sensitive these individual spoilers aren't for aerodynamics they're to let other drivers know how this car is feeling inspired by reptiles this mercedes concept car's skin moves like animals with its back up literally but it's also in tune with how i'm feeling inside the cockpit replica i'm able to control a video game purely with the power of thought an eeg headset reads my brain activity and when i think about a virtual button it tells the computer my selection and the government is honing in on this area as part of a wider push to attract foreign talent and grow its tax scene true to form it's kicking off an international competition next week we are looking to create 1 000 digital companies we are looking to attract 100 000 coders and programmers to be here over in the next five years we're looking to double the digital economy you know by 100 to a good 200 billion economy here if you look at all these initiatives what it points to is the desire the ambition and the humility to want to constantly upgrade to keep ahead and dubai is becoming an alluring player human in motion robotics has traveled from canada to show off its invention five years ago i suffered a spinal cord injury and doctors told me i would never walk again but today i can tell you on this world stage that i am walking again the people who told me that forgot about technology [Music] it's not only just health and wellness of being upright and moving but it's also the mental health for people of being eye to eye with peers again to be able to hug my husband to my chest this changes my life getting people around safely is on the nation's agenda the road traffic authority is smartening up its cycle lanes the camera that we have it installed in that ship can detect if a cyclist is wearing a helmet or not also we can detect the occupancy of the cycling track so we have an increased number of cyclists can send an alert to related government entities for a faster action in case of any emergency of course innovating is one thing but in the heat of the desert i haven't personally seen any cyclists and whilst this trade show is getting bigger it may be a while before this place becomes the industry magnet it's aspiring to be that was nick and with jytex and the world expo both on this year dubai certainly has tried to put itself at the center of the tech world many of the country pavilions here are stunning although it's good to remember that this show is more about ideas than invention a chance for a nation to promote its values and its visions so i was a bit nervous to see how the uk had chosen to represent itself i shouldn't have worried not a red telephone box in sight this is a building that embodies an idea from one of our greatest minds stephen hawking the days of a thousand photographs no one thought we could actually talk to water it's like looking out the window on a starship at first we were trying to make inrelations by feeding our fangs what now turning to foods in the shape of letters that's alphabetic spaghetti isn't it profound this is poetry generated by an artificial intelligence and inspired by professor hawking's project to find a universal message that we could send into space in an effort to contact alien life to learn what kind of phrases go where the ai was trained on thousands of actual poems and it then creates new verses from words donated by the pavilion's thousands of visitors who make their way up the winding ramp to the top you can tell this is the uk pavilion because they built in a massive cueing system [Music] time to add my own genius to the masterpiece oh i'm so original and then your donation is taken into the structure where you can watch it being absorbed into the walls accompanied by a soundtrack of international voices and sounds all playing in harmony [Music] samir hashmi is the bbc's middle east business correspondent and you are based in dubai this is your patch thank you for having us well good to have you here spencer the team and you are here and yes we are here at the uae pavilion i know and it's no surprise really that it is the most spectacular of all of them yeah it's the biggest it's the largest and what you see uh the design of this pavilion is actually a falcon the bird in a flight because that's the main main bird of the country so it really reflects the journey of this country from the desert uh to where they are right what should we expect from these kind of world fairs should we expect the next big invention or is it more about countries posturing it's more about posturing really i think the ua is very clear that they were not expecting one big idea to come out of the expo which we have seen in the past right and the fact that this would be the first or one of the first big in-person events after covert 19 gives them a great opportunity to showcase the world this new world we live in what happens to this site after the expo uh well the plan is that 80 percent of the site i'm not not including the country pavilions but the rest of the site uh will remain in place some of them will be converted into science museums the main exhibition center will be kind of where is where they're planning to host all the major events going ahead which used to take place in the heart of the city jaitex which is taking place at the main exhibition center they're hoping that these events would move here over the next few years well samir thanks for having us see your place and uh we'll see you again soon great to have you here [Music] when the sun goes down the expo really comes to life at the heart of the action the el wassel dome and if there is an eiffel tower of expo 2020 this is it [Music] i found myself saying this a lot when i've been in dubai but honestly this is the greatest projection i've ever seen [Music] by day the dome is a beautiful semi-shaded structure but the extraordinary performances after dark are where the magic really happens and it's all driven by the team in the control room those are the biggest projectors i've seen in my life 252 40k projectors that provide the projection we want to get into the numbers 27 000 pixels by just over five and a half thousand [Music] so we've got 42 pods and um each of these parts houses six of the projectors six layers of projection focused into the into the dye each piece of video which makes up the patchwork in the sky is feathered at the edges so it all blends smoothly together and bill told me that not all of the graphics are pre-recorded in advance they can actually make changes live which sounds terrifying it goes wrong very quickly so there's been a lot of testing of the sizes the shapes and the speed of having to move around it's a feast for the eyes and for the ears the sounds come from any and every direction around the circumference we've got 27 channels of audio plus the one 27.1 surround sound exactly [Music] what you can't see is that this dome is made of lots of different shapes lots of different circles and diamond and triangle and arch shaped tiles the images are being perfectly projected onto some of those shapes so they just perfectly match the circle or the arch i mean it really is faultless [Music] outrageous audacious and spectacular the dome and the whole expo really i wasn't sure that a show like this could possibly live up to the hype but i have to be honest it really has to be seen to be believed and i'm afraid to say that is it from the world expo 2020 a year late but worth the wait was it the greatest show on earth the best i've seen in a while i have to say thanks for watching and we'll see [Music] you

Channel: BBC Click

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Keywords: BBC, BBC Click, BBC News, Click, Technology, Tech, click;, dubai, expo 2020, gitex, united arab emirates

Id: P45r3vtU9lM

Length: 24min 30sec (1470 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021