On July 17, the second installment of this series highlights the increasing importance of a major international event as a hub for academic exchange and technological innovation, showcasing everything from Turing Award-winning researchers to emerging startups and next-generation AI solutions.
Highlight 6: Nine Award Winners from the Turing and Nobel Prizes Gather at the Conference
This year’s event has convened over 1,400 participants from both China and abroad, engaging in more than 140 forum discussions that focus on the latest advancements in artificial intelligence. Among these participants are nine distinguished laureates, including winners of the Turing Award—the highest honor in AI—as well as Nobel laureates.
During the main forum, Richard Sutton, recognized as the “Father of Reinforcement Learning” and the 2024 Turing Award recipient, delivered a keynote address. Yoshua Bengio, who received the Turing Award in 2018, outlined the United Nations’ framework for AI governance. Gilles Brassard, the 2025 Turing Award winner, along with Omar M. Yaghi, the 2025 Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, participated in discussions on the emerging AI for Science (AI4S) paradigm, which merges artificial intelligence with high-performance computing to accelerate scientific discovery.
Highlight 7: Innovation Incubation Zone Looks for the Next Big Unicorn
The WAIC Future Tech zone, situated at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, serves as the hub for innovation incubation. This year, organizers selected roughly 150 startups and 22 solo-project ventures from a pool of 1,200 entries, spanning industries like application-specific AI, embodied AI and hardware, infrastructure, and frontier technologies.
For instance, Xingjie Zhiwei, established last month, demonstrated a real-time “streaming video generation” technology that integrates large language models, video creation, and AI agents, enabling continuous conversational video synthesis. Meanwhile, FieldQuantum Technology, launched in January, presented its AI4S agent powered by quantum computing technology.
These startups will participate in roadshows, open mic sessions, and innovation-sharing events throughout the conference to attract investors and industry stakeholders.
Highlight 8: Breakthrough in Operating System Technology—World’s First Agent-Native OS Revealed
Shanghai-based Jieyue Xingchen Intelligent Technology, known as StepFun, introduced its flagship product, the StepX Neo smartphone, featuring the world’s first agent-native operating system, Step AOS.
Unlike traditional systems that merely add AI functions, Step AOS is built from the ground up to support AI agents, paving a new pathway for future human-computer interaction.
Highlight 9: Alibaba’s Semiconductor Division Unveils the Panjiu AL128 Supernode
T-Head Semiconductor, Alibaba Group’s chip design arm, showcased the Panjiu AL128 supernode AI server at the event. Powered by the company’s proprietary Zhenwu M890 AI chip and the ICN Switch 1.0 interconnect chip, this marks its first public debut.
Vice President Gao Hui from T-Head will participate in a forum tomorrow, discussing how cloud service providers in the AI era can transition from serving human engineers to supporting AI agents, making large-scale enterprise deployment more efficient.
Highlight 10: Two Forums Spotlights on Sustainable Computing Power
With increasing demand for AI computational resources, reducing energy use in large data centers has become a crucial part of industry sustainability. Two forums, “Refactoring Computing Power” and “AI and Green Low-Carbon Development,” will explore solutions to this challenge.
Attendees will see demonstrations from Huawei Technologies, Dawning Information Industry, and MetaX Integrated Circuits, showcasing next-generation liquid-cooling systems. The State Grid Corporation of China will also share case studies on how green electricity supports computing infrastructure.
For additional insights, see the previous part covering local AI chip manufacturers, new product launches by tech giants, and more highlights from the conference, including developments in AI chips, infrastructure, intelligent agents, embodied AI, and consumer AI innovations.