AI momentum to inject more impetus

A humanoid robot greets people at an artificial intelligence distribution center in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, on Dec 4, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's push to commercialize and scale up the application of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence across a broad range of industries is expected to inject fresh momentum into high-quality economic growth, senior officials and business executives said at the China Development Forum 2026 in Beijing.

In particular, China's abundant industrial application scenarios, growing supply of high-quality data and continued efforts to advance high-standard opening-up are creating broad opportunities for both domestic and foreign businesses, they said at the two-day event.

Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Administration, said China's AI sector has continued to expand on the back of technological innovation and commercial applications. "By the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, the scale of China's AI-related industries is expected to exceed 10 trillion yuan ($1.45 trillion)," he said.

AI agents are becoming an important force driving the rapid expansion of large-model applications in China, Liu said, adding that they enable autonomous task planning and sustained execution, marking a new form of large-model application in real-world scenarios.

"Broad-based AI adoption across industries is key to translating high-tech advances into momentum for development."

He also said high-quality data is essential to the large-scale application of AI. As AI advances from foundation models to industry-specific models and gains deeper traction in the real economy, high-quality sectoral datasets are becoming critical to effective model deployment.

Xu Bin, head of research at UBS Securities, said the year 2026 could be a pivotal year for the scaled adoption of AI agents in China, as the technology shifts from conversational interaction toward task execution across a widening range of business scenarios.

UBS remains positive about the outlook for faster adoption and expects continued evolution across the industry value chain, he added.

Huang Zhiming, vice-president of Cisco, highlighted China's strengths in AI, citing its advantages in computing power, talent and energy resources, as well as its vast market. "From healthcare and logistics to manufacturing and finance, China offers a wide range of application scenarios for AI," Huang said.

Such a rich and diverse market environment provides broad scope for AI applications to expand further in China, he added.f an open innovation ecosystem.

The transformation is already underway. Ola Kallenius, chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group, said: "China is a crucial innovation hub, especially in fields of electrification and intelligence. We are accelerating the next level of localization in China, tapping even more into the potential of its unique local ecosystem."

Siemens CEO Roland Busch said that China plays a dual and critical role for the German industrial giant — serving as both a core market and a source of innovation. On Monday, the company unveiled 26 new products developed and manufactured in China that are destined for global markets.

For foreign investors, China is like a "fitness club", said Denis Depoux, global managing director at German management consultancy Roland Berger. "Foreign companies have to be competitive, have to move quickly, and have to bring the most cutting-edge innovations to China," he added.

The number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises stood at 8,631 in the first two months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Commerce.

"More than four decades of reform and opening-up have demonstrated that China offers a long-term, stable and secure development environment, making it the most reliable safe haven for international capital," said Han Wenxiu, executive deputy director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, during the forum on Sunday.

Editor：Lotus