The 7th "Wisdom at the Fingertips" Youth Abacus Cultural Heritage and Aesthetic Education Conference in Chengdu, Sichuan province, concluded on Sunday. As a flagship event in China's abacus-related intangible cultural heritage sector, the conference adopted a coordinated three-city format, spanning Beijing, Chengdu, and Xi'an in Shaanxi province. The Chengdu session served as the second stop of this national tour.
The Chengdu event brought together over 800 abacus calculation enthusiasts from more than 30 teams representing 16 domestic provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, as well as Mongolia. Using young people as a bridge, it exported traditional Chinese mathematical and civilizational achievements, continuously expanding the global communication impact of China's outstanding traditional culture.
At the opening ceremony, Li Lin, director of the Sichuan Culture Center, said that abacus calculation became a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013. This represents the international community's recognition of the scientific and cultural value of China's abacus calculation.
Professor Yang Peng from the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, says that the abacus' digit-position design, carry logic, and bead-moving rules collectively constitute a complete and reproducible ancient computational procedure. In this sense, abacus calculation represents an early mature algorithmic practice in China. Furthermore, mental abacus calculation internalizes the entire set of operational logic within the human brain, enabling algorithmic operation at the cognitive level.
"Artificial intelligence represents external machine computing power, while mental abacus calculation cultivates internal human cognitive computing power. The two are not substitutes but rather co-evolving partners," says Yang. He believes that as AI takes over many repetitive computational tasks, human abilities in problem decomposition and logical structuring become increasingly valuable. The key lesson that abacus calculation offers to the contemporary world is to guide young people to master technology rather than be controlled by algorithms.
