A humanoid robot greets people at an artificial intelligence distribution center in Nanjing, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, on December 4, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
China’s efforts to commercialize and expand the application of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence across a wide range of industries are expected to inject new momentum into high-quality economic growth, government officials and business executives said at the 2026 China Development Forum in Beijing.
In particular, China’s rich industrial application scenario, increasing supply of high-quality data, and continuous efforts to promote high-level opening-up are creating a wide range of opportunities for domestic and international business, the two men said at the two-day event.
Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Administration, said China’s AI sector continues to expand on the back of technological innovation and commercial applications. “By the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, the size of China’s AI-related industry is expected to exceed 10 trillion yuan ($1.45 trillion),” he said.
AI agents are becoming an important driver of the rapid expansion of large-scale model applications in China, Liu said, adding that AI agents enable autonomous task planning and sustained execution, representing a new form of large-scale model applications in real-world scenarios.
“Broad adoption of AI across industries is key to turning high-tech advances into development momentum.”
He also said that high-quality data is essential for large-scale applications of AI. As AI evolves from foundational models to industry-specific models and gains more traction in the real economy, high-quality sectoral datasets are becoming essential for effective model deployment.
Xu Bin, head of research at UBS Securities, said 2026 could be a pivotal year for expanded adoption of AI agents in China, as AI technology moves from conversational interaction to task execution across a wide range of business scenarios.
UBS remains positive about the prospects for faster implementation and looks forward to continued evolution across the industry value chain, he added.
Cisco Vice President Huang Zhiming highlighted China’s strengths in AI, citing China’s advantages in computing power, human resources, energy resources, and vast market. “From medicine and logistics to manufacturing and finance, China offers a wide range of application scenarios for AI,” Huang said.
It added that such a rich and diverse market environment provides a wide scope for further expansion of AI applications in China.
Zhang Chengshu Contributed to this story.
