The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference opened in Shanghai on July 17, bringing together more than 1,100 companies and showcasing over 3,000 exhibits.

Held under the theme "AI Partnership for a Brighter Future", this year's exhibition spans more than 100,000 square meters for the first time, with more than 300 products making their global debut.

One trend stands out: AI is moving beyond the digital world and into physical settings. Robots are beginning to collaborate on real-world tasks, AI agents are learning to handle complex assignments rather than answer questions, and AI is becoming part of daily life through devices such as smart glasses and smartphones.

Robots collaborate on real-world tasks

The Model Era, City of Partners exhibition zone at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center features more than 300 robots in dynamic application scenarios spanning manufacturing, everyday life, and entertainment.

A recreated new-energy vehicle production line demonstrates how robots can work on lithium batteries, vehicle lamps, wiring harnesses, gearboxes, and horns.

A robot equipped with visual and tactile sensors can independently pick up components, tighten screws, connect wiring, and conduct a lighting test. It can also detect changes and adjust its movements during the task.

Another exhibit recreates a smart pharmacy in which the same embodied AI model powers three robots from different manufacturers. Given randomly generated orders, the robots divide the work among themselves and complete the full process, from order receipt to medicine retrieval and delivery.

The system has already been deployed at Guo Da Drugstore outlets in Shanghai.

From July 17 to 20, six robots will also work together continuously for 15 hours to build a model of the Great Wall from 80,000 building blocks. Each robot can perceive its surroundings, make decisions, and adjust its role as the task progresses.

Large AI computing clusters make their debut

As demand for AI computing power continues to rise, this year's exhibition expands its focus beyond individual chips to supernodes and large computing clusters.

Huawei is presenting the actual hardware for its Atlas 950 SuperPoD for the first time. The version on display consists of 16 computing cabinets equipped with 1,024 Ascend AI processors, which can operate together as a single system.

Sugon is showcasing the Sugon 8000 (Dengfeng), China's first fully domestic 100,000-accelerator AI supercluster.

Selected as one of the conference's 10 standout exhibits, the system supports scientific computing, large-model training, AI inference, and industrial simulation.

AI agents move beyond chat

AI agents are playing a bigger role at this year's conference. Instead of only responding to questions, they can increasingly understand requests, break down complex tasks, and invoke software tools and online services.

Baidu's DuMate is the only general-purpose AI agent selected as one of the conference's 10 standout exhibits. It can search for information, write code, conduct in-depth research, analyze data, build applications, and use services such as ride-hailing and errand running.

Kingsoft Office is showcasing WPS Lingxi, an AI agent that extracts information from users' documents and conversations. Over time, it can learn about their ongoing projects, writing styles, and topics of interest.

Tencent is debuting WorkBuddy, which allows users to coordinate multiple AI agents through natural-language instructions to complete complex office tasks.

AI moves into smart glasses

Several consumer AI devices are also on display at WAIC 2026.

The Qwen Glasses S1 features swappable batteries that can be replaced without turning off the device. The glasses also offer a near-eye display, first-person video recording, real-time translation, navigation, and payment functions.

iFlytek is showcasing its AI glasses, which weigh just 40 grams. Using lip-movement recognition and multimodal noise reduction, the glasses can identify the active speaker in noisy environments while providing real-time translation and other AI-assisted functions.

Brain signals control a game character

Visitors can also experience a brain-computer interface gaming system.

By wearing a lightweight electroencephalography (EEG) cap, participants can control a character's movements and attacks in Black Myth: Wukong using only brain signals — without a keyboard, mouse, or game controller.

The non-invasive system captures and decodes neural signals, then converts the user's intentions into device commands. Related technology is also being used in sleep-related applications, early warning for epileptic seizures, and anesthesia monitoring.

Sources: Wenhui Daily, Shanghai Observer, WAIC