Lighting up the cosmos
A 10-minute drive from the Robot Mall takes you to Tongming Lake, from where MagicWorld's modern architecture gleams in the distance.
It was Beijing's first AI new-quality community cluster, driven by large models trained on massive data sets to perform a wide range of tasks. Within 500,000 square meters of innovative space, top AI companies' offices coexist with the public-facing "ecological rainforest" exhibition hall.
Entering the hall, visitors first encounter a mysterious glowing sphere, where a head-mounted sensor collects brain signals and uses AI to model them in real time into concentration levels. As you meditate and focus, the on-screen cosmos gathers and fiber-optic spheres pulse faster. When concentration drops, they slowly disperse.
"Connecting the rhythm of your mind to the energy flow of the cosmos makes focus visible," explains Wang Ying, MagicWorld's general manager.
Nearby, piano music emanates not from a musician, but from a potted fern. The "Rhythm of Life" device was created by a Tsinghua University student team, and is popularly known as "the singing plant". Hidden bioelectric sensors capture the plant's internal electrical signals in real time, which the AI models into piano melodies.
Different plants produce completely different musical "styles".
For instance, moisture-loving ferns generate slow, sustained melodies like forest dawn songs, while succulents, with their abrupt physiological rhythms, produce lighter, quicker tunes. Signals from cacti run "colder", creating sparse, ethereal compositions.
The true magic happens when you touch a leaf. The plant's electrical signals change instantly — like a person reacting to being tickled. AI captures this change and adjusts the melody accordingly: sometimes accelerating rhythm, sometimes raising pitch, sometimes introducing unexpected notes.
Visitors can also experience other AI-themed offerings, including turning a photo into a stylized short video and trying augmented reality translation glasses that display real-time subtitles directly in their field of vision.
