Coronavirus: List of international summits that have been cancelled so far due to COVID-19

New Delhi, Mar 02: The controversial and deadly Covid-19 coronavirus has been playing a major role in prompting several major tech conferences around the world to cancel their events.

So far, many summits have been called off entirely, including Facebook's annual F8 developer conference. It is an unprecedented disruption to the usual packed lineup of annual tech events every year. This cancellations of the biggest tech events of the year seem to be a sign of what is to come in other sectors as fears mount that the coronavirus will become widespread.

Tech conferences that have been cancelled:

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) was scheduled to be held from March 16 to 20 in San Francisco. It is where the developers and publishers preview new gaming technologies. This conference cancelled after Microsoft, Sony, Facebook, Epic Games, EA, Kojima, Unity and all China-based attendees took a decision to back off.

Facebook, in a statement, had said, "Out of an abundance of caution, we cancelled our Global Marketing Summit due to evolving public health risks related to coronavirus."

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On the other hand, Google also called off its Google News Initiative Summit. The conference had been scheduled for late April in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Tech conferences where its exhibitors called off:

According to reports, IBM, AT&T and Verizon withdrew its participation before the conference began, citing the outbreak of coronavirus. Fourteen companies, including six from China, opted out of the event due to the fear of coronavirus.

In a tweet, IBM had said, "The health of IBMers is our primary concern as we continue to monitor upcoming events and travel relative to Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)."

By taking Facebook and other major tech companies into consideration of having cancelled or dropping off from the conferences, there are several questions regarding if other major conferences too would do the same.

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This year in May and June, Google and Apple, respectively, are scheduled to have conferences in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, for now, Google has confirmed that it is currently planning to host its I/O conference from May 12 to 14 in Mountain View.

Meanwhile, here is a list of notable tech conferences, that usually gather more than 100,000 attendees a year, have been cancelled so far due to the outbreak of coronavirus:

• EmTech, Singapore
• Facebook F8 in San Jose, California
• Mobile World Congress, Barcelona
• Shopify's developer conference, Unite, Toronto
• Google News Initiative Global Summit in Sunnyvale, California