Before the Opening | Why Understanding the WAIC Ecosystem Means Grasping the Future of China's AI

If someone still regards the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) as just an annual summit today, they are likely to have missed the most real and interesting changes in China's AI.

In the past, when we talked about AI, it was either a parameter competition in technical papers or a trendy story in the capital market. However, when AI starts to enter factories, hospitals, schools, and even becomes the "default configuration" in the growth process of the next generation, a truly important question emerges: How can people of different ages, industries, and stances reach a consensus and even work together in the same AI era?

Today, China's AI has long bid farewell to the simple technical race and entered a brand - new stage of ecosystem determining the future and co - construction determining the pattern. This is also the core significance of the continuous iteration of WAIC: It is not just an exhibition, but a complete public ecosystem that makes up for the shortcomings, fills the gaps, and supports the future of China's AI.

From the ideological anchor point, youth succession, to innovation incubation, precise connection, and global breakthrough, each link in the five - major ecological matrix of WAIC is irreplaceable.

 01 WAIC UP!: Why is the "sober voice" most needed in the AI era?

The era of the fastest - growing AI is also the era when the public is most prone to anxiety and the industry is most likely to follow blindly. As computing power becomes stronger, models become larger, and applications become more popular, there come endless cognitive confusion, impetuous viewpoints, and ethical disputes.

China's AI, which is galloping forward in technology, not only needs hardcore speed but also cannot do without ideological pattern and humanistic background. WAIC UP! WAKE UP MORE! With the original intention of awakening thinking, it delves deep into the profound propositions of technological transformation, human boundaries, and future civilization. It breaks free from the shackles of identity and field, connects practitioners, observers, and enthusiasts, and integrates industry, academia, humanities, and philosophy, allowing different viewpoints to blend and collide here.

As of March 28, 2026, the first publication of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, "WAIC UP!" has published 6 issues, collaborating with more than 60 AI pioneers from all walks of life. Turing Award winners, academicians, scholars, artists, writers, designers, and other cross - boundary figures gather to talk about their "counter - intuitive" views on AI.

Piero Scaruffi (Founder of the Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence Research Institute): I hope everyone can forget the word "AI".

Steve Hoffman (Founder of the startup incubator Founders Space): Most entrepreneurs give up too late, not too early.

Jingfang Hao (Science fiction writer and Founder of Tongxing Academy): This is not involution but annihilation.

Junie Lau (Young director): AI won't kill your ideas.

Honglin Wei (Operator of Zhaomu (Ranch) Natural School): Why be overly anxious? In each era, most people are followers, and those who really need to break through thinking or boundaries are always a minority.

Nan Li (Researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences): I don't have much anxiety because I like to "join if I can't beat".

The iconic event "WAIC UP! Night" has a global online dissemination volume of nearly 6 million person - times. Behind this is the real demand of millions of people: People are no longer satisfied with knowing "how powerful AI is", but more want to understand "where we should go in the AI era".

WAIC UP! is not only the ideological origin of AI but also adheres to the concept of technology serving everyone and development being underpinned by humanities.

02 WAIC YOUNG: Enable teenagers to embrace the AI future calmly

Today's teenagers are natural AI natives, growing up in an environment where artificial intelligence is fully popularized. At the same time, the AI era has formed a special generational divide: The life experience and traditional thinking patterns accumulated by the older generation are no longer suitable for the new wave of intelligent development and can no longer provide growth guidance for children.

WAIC YOUNG emerged in response to the pain points of the era, building a global youth science and technology innovation and growth platform. It breaks the shackles of traditional education, advocates stimulating scientific and technological imagination, and cultivating future creators. The platform focuses on creating three characteristic competition activities: from "AI Meets Intangible Cultural Heritage", the AIGC Music Challenge to the Robot Dog Obstacle Race, leading teenagers to deeply experience AI creation and practice.

When technology returns to culture and life, true understanding emerges, and continuous creation follows. The value of WAIC YOUNG has long exceeded competition and skill teaching. Relying on the advantages of an international platform, it helps teenagers establish a way of thinking and comprehensive qualities suitable for the AI era in immersive practice. This platform is not just training simple programmers but reserving innovative citizens with judgment, empathy, and the ability to face the future calmly for the AI era.

03 WAIC Future Tech: Support every AI dream and create future unicorns

The disruptive transformation of any industry never comes from the comfort zone of giants but from the daring and innovative spirit of startups. However, the reality is that countless young teams and college entrepreneurs with cutting - edge technologies often lose because they are "unseen, unempowered, and uninvested".

WAIC Future Tech was born for this moment. It breaks the industry's discourse power monopolized by large companies, gives every sincere innovator a fair stage, prevents niche innovations from being buried, and ensures that early - stage dreams are not disappointed.

In 2025, it selected 225 benchmark projects from more than 600 high - quality AI startup projects globally. More than half of the founders are post - 90s, and 70% of the projects have been established for less than three years. Many entrepreneurs only brought a roll - up banner and a technical plan to the event, aiming for "traveling light and facing front - line feedback directly".

This almost clumsy sincerity is precisely the most primitive spark of innovation. What WAIC Future Tech does is to provide oxygen for these sparks - 50 roadshows, 200 investors, 2000 person - times of effective connections, and 268 million yuan in intended orders.

VAST, which emerged from the FT stage, is the most convincing footnote for this path. This team centered around post - 90s brought the technical concept of "reconstructing 3D interactive content creation with AI" to the Future Tech roadshow stage. With its excellent algorithm strength and clear technical route, VAST attracted intensive attention from investors at the FT event. Currently, VAST's self - developed Tripo series of 3D large models continuously refresh the global SOTA, gathering more than 20 million users globally, and its partners cover many global leading technology companies. At the beginning of this month, the company just announced the completion of two consecutive rounds of financing, A+ and A++, totaling nearly 200 million US dollars. At the same time, VAST released the world's first general world model, Project Eden, which supports environmental sustainability and multi - person concurrent interaction. Its technical route is regarded as the key foundation for the next - generation spatial intelligence. From the debut of a young team on the FT roadshow stage to now being among the leading echelon in the AI track, VAST's growth trajectory is the best proof that WAIC Future Tech "ensures that early - stage dreams are not disappointed".

Giants determine the present of AI, while young startup teams define the future of AI. WAIC Future Tech uses real traffic, resources, and capital to protect the most precious innovative original intention of the industry, making every bold attempt possible to be seen and realized.

 04 WAIC CONNECT: Break through the "deep - water area" and reconstruct the first mile of AI implementation

Currently, China's AI industry has entered the deep - water area of implementation, but the mismatch between supply and demand has become more obvious: Physical enterprises have diverse scene requirements and face difficulties in technology selection; science and technology innovation teams have high - quality solutions but have difficulty reaching the real industrial needs, and many projects stop at the initial stage of implementation.

While the entire industry focuses on solving the end - stage problems of project implementation, WAIC CONNECT chooses to become the "global AI industry super connector" and reconstructs the "first mile" of the start. Relying on exclusive digital capabilities, it analyzes millions of different demand data into standardized technology matching solutions; paired with one - on - one in - depth services from senior industry experts, it builds an efficient and reliable industrial cooperation system.

In the past year, WAIC CONNECT connected 827 upstream and downstream enterprises, served 156 real - name procurement groups, released more than 300 industrial demands, and leading enterprises such as the National Oil and Gas Pipeline Network Group, China Telecom, and Baosteel opened 57 core application scenarios, with a cumulative intended cooperation amount of 16.2 billion yuan.

It enables physical enterprises to connect with high - quality resources and avoid ineffective exploration; technology enterprises face the front line of the industry and seize market opportunities. WAIC CONNECT delves deep into application scenarios in various industries, breaks through industrial chain barriers, and promotes the great transformation of AI from an "intelligent tool" to an "industrial symbiotic partner".

05 AI GRAVITY: Enable China's AI to go global and take root in the world

China leads the world in the scale of AI applications. However, for a long time, going global has remained at a shallow - level output, facing difficulties such as insufficient trust, high barriers, and weak collaboration, making it difficult to truly integrate into the global ecosystem and gain international discourse power.

The core mission of AI GRAVITY is to make up for the biggest shortcoming in the globalization of China's AI: It not only promotes product export but also builds an ecological foundation, and constructs a sustainable and high - trust global AI cooperation network. Where the gravity points, innovation follows. This platform is using the power of the ecosystem to help China's AI open up a new global pattern.

In November 2025, AI GRAVITY went global and landed at the AIMX Conference in Singapore. It gathered more than 3,000 offline practitioners and more than 900 domestic and foreign enterprises, and held more than 200 precise supply - demand matching meetings. At the same time, it signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with the MP Group, a top - tier exhibition organizer in the Asia - Pacific region, upgrading from a single event organizer to a long - term co - builder of the global AI ecosystem. Local enterprises represented by ZhiYuan Robotics, Lightelligence, and Alibaba International took root deeply in the Southeast Asian market, achieving two - way output of technology and brand.

Among them, the ethnic dance performance of ZhiYuan Robotics was on the opening day of AIMX 2025, attracting the attention of the Minister of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Singapore. With the ecological link of AI GRAVITY, ZhiYuan Robotics continuously expands the local market. In March this year, it reached a strategic cooperation with Singtel, a leading communication enterprise in Southeast Asia. As a regional communication hub, Singtel has a complete 5G and 5G - A network system. The two sides combine embodied intelligence technology and communication infrastructure to explore the implementation and application of robots and plan to launch a robot leasing service to lower the local usage threshold. At the same time, ZhiYuan Robotics also joined hands with local service providers to deploy intelligent robots at Terminal 5 of Singapore Changi Airport to undertake tasks such as passenger guidance and park inspection. This cooperation marks that China's embodied intelligence technology has been recognized by the mainstream Asia - Pacific market and sets a reference example for domestic AI enterprises to go global locally.

Facing the future, AI GRAVITY has a clear layout: In 2026, it will focus on the Asia - Pacific region; in 2027, it will comprehensively layout the European market, and simultaneously build a global AI cooperation database and an intelligent matching platform. Relying on the international advantages of Shanghai, it will build the first stop for China's AI to go global and the global AI eastern hub, enabling China's AI to truly go global, integrate into the world, and lead the world.

Conclusion: Understand the ultimate future of China's AI through a complete ecosystem

The five major ecosystems of WAIC, each with an irreplaceable mission, together form a complete closed - loop for the development of China's AI.

WAIC UP!: Uphold the ideological and humanistic bottom line and answer the original value intention of AI development;

WAIC YOUNG: Anchor youth innovation and cultivate future citizens;

WAIC Future Tech: Incubate innovative sparks and activate new forces in the industry;

WAIC CONNECT: Delve deep into industry scenarios and link industrial symbiosis;

AI GRAVITY: Break through global links and broaden the global pattern of China's AI. The future of China's AI has never been a breakthrough of a single technology but an all - around symbiosis and co - prosperity of ideology, youth, innovation, industry, and the global community.