The Shanghai Humanoid Robotics Pilot-scale Service Platform is launched during the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference. [Photo/WeChat ID: Ke-Way]

As the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) returns to Shanghai this month, Pudong New Area is highlighting how it is moving beyond large-model development to integrate AI more deeply into industries including biomedicine, robotics, finance and data services, while supporting companies' overseas expansion.

The district is home to nearly 1,800 AI companies, and 63 large AI models have completed their filing procedures. As China's first pilot zone for AI innovation and application, Pudong has developed an AI industry approaching 200 billion yuan ($29.56 billion) in scale.

At its annual AI industry integration and innovation promotion conference held on July 18, one day after 2026 WAIC opened, Pudong brought the discussion from global AI trends to local applications, service platforms and real-world use cases.

From models to integration

That shift did not happen overnight. Over the past three years, Pudong's annual promotion events during WAIC have traced a clear evolution in the district's AI strategy: first bringing AI resources together, then putting them into wider use, and now integrating them deeply with its major industries.

In 2024, the focus was on large-model momentum. As large AI models swept across the world, Pudong launched the Model Power Community to bring together companies, resources and platforms, showing its early strength in AI clustering and ecosystem building.

In 2025, the event was upgraded to a global promotion conference for Pudong's AI industrial ecosystem. During WAIC that year, a 104-member investment promotion team connected with 328 new companies, collected 220 investment leads and signed 18 major projects, 13 of which have since been registered. The focus shifted from clustering resources to presenting a more complete AI industrial chain.

This year, the focus has moved further toward integration and innovation. The conference released updates in six areas — industrial layout, sci-tech finance, core technologies, data elements, public service scenarios and service platforms — making integration the central direction of Pudong's AI development.

A three-year plan (2026-28) to build an AI+biomedicine industrial cluster in Pudong was also released at the event. Drawing on the district's biomedicine layout and Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town, the plan aims to build an internationally influential AI+biomedicine innovation hub. It focuses on original innovation, new drug development and intelligent medical devices, with priorities including the AI-assisted analysis of life-science mechanisms, full-cycle innovative drug R&D and human-machine collaboration in medical equipment.

Beyond biomedicine, the conference highlighted a broader set of signature AI achievements and emerging innovators from Pudong, spanning chips, computing systems, intelligent terminals, robotics, AI drug development, brain-computer interfaces, financial services and quantum computing.

The achievements included the DF1000, an AI accelerator card based on a software-defined 3D near-memory computing architecture; the MetaX X302 scientific computing GPU; and Lightelligence's Tianshu Light Cube, an integrated optoelectronic-hybrid computing box.

Other standouts include the nubia NaviX Ultra AI-agent smartphone; the AGIBOT A3 general-purpose humanoid robot; Robbyant's embodied-native LingBot foundation-model series; and Rentosertib, Insilico Medicine's AI-discovered and AI-designed investigational drug candidate.

Rounding out the highlights are Neuracle Medical Technology's NeuSen NEO implantable BCI system for hand-movement function compensation; China UnionPay's "AI+Finance" Open Service Infrastructure and Ecosystem Enablement Platform; and QAgent, TuringQ's industry-grade quantum-classical hybrid agent platform.

Behind these achievements are companies including Dongfang Suanxin, MetaX, Lightelligence, Shanghai Shenqi Jiyuan Intelligent Terminal, AGIBOT, Robbyant, Insilico Medicine, Neuracle Medical Technology, China UnionPay and TuringQ, highlighting the breadth of Pudong's innovation base.

The event also released a white paper on scientific data supporting Pudong's future industries, outlining pathways and strategies for using scientific data to empower emerging sectors.

In terms of public service scenarios, Pudong unveiled a silver-economy technology innovation center and a real-world laboratory for elderly care and AI. These facilities will focus on smart monitoring, elderly-friendly robots and digital chronic disease management, responding to the needs of an aging megacity.

Robotics was another major focus. The Shanghai Humanoid Robotics Pilot-Scale Service Platform was put into operation in Zhangjiang Robotics Valley, creating a bridge between laboratory research and mass production.

The 6,800-square-meter platform integrates trial production, precision assembly, full-process testing, warehousing and delivery. It has an annual capacity for 2,000 complete robots and 2,000 sets of core precision components, covering validation needs for humanoid, wheeled-arm and quadruped robots.

Liu Yufei, executive deputy general manager of the National and Local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, said the platform will work with existing training grounds to connect closed training data with real-world scenario data.

"The data platform and pilot production platform will be closely integrated, moving from closed training data to real-world scenario data and from production lines to more heterogeneous robots, feeding back into training, data development and scenario applications," he said.

Taken together, the releases showed how AI is moving from an additional tool to a multiplier embedded in industrial logic, Liu noted.

A global AI hub

This year's WAIC theme, "AI Partnership for a Brighter Future," points to a broader shift: AI is no longer only a tool, but increasingly a partner in production, governance and daily life.

As AI moves from exhibition booths to city operations and industrial sites, Pudong's role as a pilot zone is to move earlier than others, turning technologies into industries, concepts into real-world scenarios, and intelligent partners into everyday applications.

That ability to move first is supported by three strengths: full-stack AI innovation, a complete industrial cluster, and access to global markets.

Pudong has attracted major academic and research platforms, including the School of Computing and Data Science, The University of Hong Kong; a quantum science and technology institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University; and the Shanghai Innovation Institute. Related disciplines are expected to produce more than 3,300 graduates this year and over 5,000 within three years. 

The district has also built a technology system covering general-purpose chips and silicon photonic chips, with more than 40 innovative companies working together on key technologies. It has deployed 7.2 EFLOPS of intelligent computing power, about half of Shanghai's total, opened more than 400 public datasets, and supported more than 5,500 listed data products on the Shanghai Data Exchange.

The second strength is a complete AI industrial cluster. Pudong's three leading industries - integrated circuits, biomedicine and AI - are entering a new stage of integrated development and cross-sector innovation. Looking to the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), both the AI and intelligent terminal clusters are moving toward the 200-billion-yuan level.

In AI+biomedicine, Pudong has attracted more than 60 AI drug development companies, accounting for nearly 80 percent of Shanghai's total and almost one-third of the national total. In AI+embodied intelligence, Zhiyuan's self-developed G2.0 ranked first on a global world-model benchmark, while its first robot has received several hundred mass-production orders.

The third strength is global market access. From January to June, Pudong accounted for 88 percent of Shanghai's filed outbound projects and 53 percent of related investment, with AI outbound projects taking a rising share. The district is building Shanghai's first digital overseas expansion service base and has attracted 74 companies across the internet industrial chain.

Pudong has also supported companies in participating in the development of 37 international standards. The Shanghai Eastern Hub International Business Cooperation Zone, the only one of its kind in China, is building a dedicated cross-border negotiation and exhibition area for companies, where overseas business visitors can enjoy 30-day visa-free entry.

"Come to Pudong to develop AI, and let the world see you," said Wu Jincheng, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai municipal government and head of Pudong New Area.

"We always practice friend-like communication, partner-like entrepreneurship and steward-like services, serving AI companies at the speed of AI growth," Wu said.

For startups, Pudong is lowering early-stage costs. Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town offers startup teams up to six months of rent-free office space.

Cheng Ziyang, founder of legal AI startup LexSeek AI, said she was only a WAIC visitor last year, but after moving into the town, she gained a stable workstation and seed-round financing from Pudong venture capital. This year, she returned with her product and first booth.

"The six months of zero-cost entrepreneurship gave us room to breathe and the confidence to rebuild," she said.

Ding Juntao, founder of Shanghai Gouxu Technology, developer of the AI video-editing tool Aixcut, said the town's independent office space can cost as little as 1 yuan per square meter per day. His team completed site selection and relocation in just three days.

Capital support is expanding as well. Pudong's 2-billion-yuan AI seed fund, with a first phase of 500 million yuan, has invested 223 million yuan in 61 projects over the past year, covering vertical model applications, embodied intelligence, foundational platforms, smart terminals and brain-computer interfaces.

Together with partners including Hillhouse Capital, Pudong has launched an AI training camp, with the first 24 projects receiving graded investment of 300,000 to 1.5 million yuan.

Pudong is also improving support for young talent.

By the end of 2027, it plans to provide more than 1 million square meters of youth apartments with monthly rent below 2,000 yuan, and more than 1 million sq m of startup space with daily rent below 1 yuan per sq m.

University interns can receive a monthly subsidy of 2,000 yuan for six months, outstanding startups can receive 1 million yuan a year for three consecutive years, and top talent can receive up to 100 million yuan in research and development support.