Wanlei Zhou, Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Data Science at City University of Macau, recently went to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and was invited to attend the 2024 CCF China Blockchain Technology and Application Summit Forum. He delivered a keynote speech titled "Blockchain Empowered IoT and Federated Learning: Enhancing Security, Privacy, and Efficiency". The forum is hosted by the Chinese Computer Society (CCF) and jointly organized by the CCF Blockchain Professional Committee, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, and the Faculty of Data Science and Application (School of Cyberspace Security) of Inner Mongolia University of Technology. Its aim is to further promote the implementation and landing of blockchain technology applications, achieve deeper integration of blockchain technology and applications, and promote blockchain to better empower the digital economy. 

During the reporting period, Professor Wanlei Zhou discussed the innovative applications of blockchain technology on the Internet of Things (IoT) and Federated Learning, as well as how public and private blockchain can address privacy, security, and efficiency challenges in various fields. He pointed out that the rapid growth and widespread application of the Internet of Things pose certain challenges in data management, privacy issues, and security risks. Federated learning, as a privacy preserving machine learning method, can achieve collaborative model training without sharing raw data, leading to its increasing adoption in IoT application scenarios. But both are currently facing many challenges. Professor Wanlei Zhou introduced multiple advantages of blockchain and pointed out that the introduction of blockchain will effectively solve the problems faced by the Internet of Things and federated learning, and work together with them to provide secure and efficient data management, privacy protection, and trustworthy collaborative learning. 

Professor Wanlei Zhou subsequently conducted case studies on the application of blockchain in crowdsourcing, multi-agent systems, and federated learning, and delved into the emerging field of blockchain enhanced Large Language Models (LLMs) training and forgetting. Finally, Professor Wanlei Zhou shared his insights on the current progress and future directions of blockchain supported IoT and machine learning systems. 

This forum lasts for three days and features multiple invited keynote speeches, as well as a special forum on technology and industry integration. Experts gathered together to discuss the cutting-edge theories, key technologies, and industrial applications of blockchain, contributing to the construction of a safer, more efficient, and trustworthy blockchain ecosystem, and promoting the high-quality development of the digital economy and new productivity.