This year’s Innovation Incubation Special Section brings together 633 sci-tech projects from nearly 40 countries and regions, representing an increase of nearly 20% over the previous edition and setting a new record in exhibition scale. Pooling resources around three pillars — technology, capital and market — the section features more early-stage startups, stronger technical barriers and higher matchmaking efficiency. Centered on new-quality productive forces, it builds a complete value chain covering showcase, exchange and commercial landing, forming an integrated innovation exhibition matrix with multi-dimensional functions.

First, a practical testbed for sci-tech innovation — the Touch the Future Experience Zone. Breaking away from conventional static presentations, it adopts immersive physical interaction to help business visitors gain direct insights into the technological strengths of startup projects. The zone gathers nine promising “young, early-stage and hard-tech” startups from six economies: the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Canada, Singapore and China’s Hong Kong SAR. Five of them are unveiling global debuts, and many hold cross-border core patents. Through robotic demonstrations, AI interaction and comparative displays of advanced materials, cutting-edge technologies become measurable, tangible, testable and interactive.

Second, a magnet for innovative outcomes. More than 20 domestic and international innovation partners have built a high-calibre collaborative innovation network encompassing innovation platforms of Fortune Global 500 firms, international incubators, government industrial parks and industry associations. Local innovation hubs such as Zhangjiang Science City have joined in. Companies including Boston Scientific are participating as a group for the first time. BMW Group Technology Centre China, Becton Dickinson and the Nordic Innovation Centre continue to deepen partnerships, expanding the community of collaborators. Nearly 50 new products are making their debut at the Expo, doubling the figure of last year. Maintaining its high standard, around 40 outcomes are protected by core patents and several have won international sci-tech awards, showcasing the latest advances of new-quality productive forces with a sharper focus on sophisticated, cutting-edge technologies.

Third, a convergence hub for cross-border collaboration. The event zone features 12 curated sessions under four themes: Mind·Inno — Igniting New-quality Growth, Eco·Inno — Green Innovation for Carbon Neutrality, Life·Inno — Smart Empowerment for Health, and Craft·Inno — Excellence for a Strong Manufacturing Nation. These sessions bring together government bodies, multinational chambers of commerce, industrial groups, international incubators, university research platforms and investment institutions. They connect exhibitors from over ten countries including Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom. Activities cover policy briefings, project roadshows, high-level roundtables, launch ceremonies, signing ceremonies and industrial matchmaking, accelerating the matching and flow of cross-border sci-tech resources.

Supported by four major tracks, the section gathers innovative strengths from Europe, Asia, North America and beyond. A host of pioneering innovations are showcased here, turning the zone into an arena for focused track-based innovation.

AI Track: Towards Physical Intelligence. Breaking away from the cutthroat competition among general large language models, this track centres on perception, actuation and industrial deployment in the real physical world. Addressing the pain point that general LLMs “understand texts but not the real world”, overseas innovators extend AI capabilities to physical scenarios. From robotic simulation bases and AI-enabled financial operating systems to industrial inspection tools, these latest technologies break bottlenecks that prevent AI from moving from virtual demos to real-world deployment, injecting intelligent momentum into the development of new-quality productive forces.

Algorized from the US presents a physical AI edge perception system. Using wearable-free ultra-wideband radar, it captures vital signs such as heartbeat and respiration even through obstacles, supporting human-machine safety on factory floors and driver monitoring in vehicle cabins. OneCup from the ROK launches an AI cultural relic restoration platform, which can reconstruct the original appearance of damaged relics and generate 3D-printable models from a single photo. Aixcut3.0 from the US debuts an AI video editing tool that condenses hours of editing work into dozens of minutes, boosting efficiency by dozens of times.

Source: China International Import Expo (CIIE)