A humanoid robot, wearing a safety helmet, gets fine-tuned in Shanghai on Thursday, ahead of the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance. GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY
China's booming artificial intelligence sector is entering a new phase as investors, multinational companies and policymakers shift their focus toward putting AI to work in the world's second-largest economy and exporting that capability overseas.
The shift is drawing increasing attention ahead of the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, which opens in Shanghai on Friday. China has positioned itself not only as one of the fastest-growing AI markets, but also as a major contributor to the technology's global adoption through industrial applications and open-source models, industry experts said.
In a sign of changing investor sentiment, Goldman Sachs advised investors to rotate from South Korean AI stocks to China's AI value chain, saying that China has become "one of the most compelling AI growth stories" in global technology.
The attention reflects a broader change underway in China's AI ecosystem. While the past two years were dominated by foundation models and computing power, companies are now increasingly competing on whether AI can deliver measurable productivity gains in the real economy.
