The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference was recently held successfully in Shanghai. On July 19, CICC successfully hosted the World AI Conference Investment and Financing Forum for the ninth consecutive year. This year's forum, themed "Building a New Ecosystem for Global Technology and Finance Partnerships," brought together renowned experts, scholars, policymakers, prominent investors, and leading AI entrepreneurs from China and abroad in cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence. It focused on the latest technological trends and AI development, deeply exploring feasible pathways to pool global wisdom for innovation and jointly build this new ecosystem. Pu Yapeng, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, attended the forum and delivered a keynote speech.
The Surging Wave of Artificial Intelligence
Wang Shuguang, Vice Chairman and President of CICC, delivered the welcome address. He stated that artificial intelligence is currently permeating human production and life at an unprecedented pace and will profoundly reshape the paradigms of global economic growth and industrial structures, having already become the core driving force of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. As a state-owned financial institution, CICC continues to deepen its engagement in technology finance to empower innovation-driven development. Leveraging the synergistic advantages of "Investment + Investment Banking + Research," it actively provides comprehensive support for technology and innovation enterprises. "CICC has been involved throughout the establishment of the STAR Market system, having sponsored over 50 companies for listing on the STAR Market with total financing exceeding RMB 200 billion, accounting for approximately 20% of the total IPO financing on the STAR Market. It manages the RMB 50 billion National Venture Capital Guiding Fund and, through various channels, has invested in over 1,400 high-tech direct investment projects via managed funds, with cumulative investments exceeding RMB 100 billion, accompanying the growth of numerous tech companies. Simultaneously, CICC continues to effectively communicate China's story. The 2024 release of 'AI Economics' sparked widespread discussion, and the 2025 reports on Embodied AI and Tech Finance tracked frontier technological developments. The report to be released this year will also deconstruct and address market concerns regarding the AI investment boom," Wang Shuguang said.
In the keynote speech segment, three distinguished guests shared their insights: Yu Feng, President of Honeywell Technology Greater China; Dong Huijuan, Global Vice President of ABB Group and Head of ABB China Government Relations & Public Affairs; and Joe Weinman, AI Strategy Expert, founder of AI Economics, "father of Cloudonomics," and Dean of the American Institute for Future Industries.
Yu Feng delivered a keynote speech titled "The Role of a 'Century-Old Industrial Enterprise' in China's AI Wave." He noted that AI applications for industrial scenarios are still burgeoning. Survey results indicate that over 80% of global manufacturing leaders have begun exploring specific applications of AI technology and generally recognize its value in efficiency improvement and decision support. However, factors such as data security, reliability of conclusions, aging equipment, and high initial investment remain major challenges constraining the rapid, large-scale adoption of AI. As AI technology advances, the entire industrial sector is accelerating its transition from automation towards autonomy. AI is activating vast amounts of industrial data, driving systems towards more optimal decision-making and execution. At the same time, value creation must be pursued with reverence, ensuring safety, reliability, and quantifiable outcomes. "China's complex industrial system provides fertile ground for validation. Honeywell Technology will work with ecosystem partners to jointly unlock industrial value," Yu Feng stated.
Dong Huijuan shared ABB's development practices in China under the theme "Embracing AI, Engineering Excellence for a Sustainable Future." She stated that as a leader in electrification and automation, the ABB Group invested USD 1.3 billion in R&D last year, with approximately half of its R&D personnel focused on digitalization and software. The company is deeply integrated into the "AI Plus" and "New Quality Productive Forces" strategies. Relying on a localized full value chain, it provides electrical and automation solutions for power, industry, transportation, and building sectors, demonstrating its long-term commitment of "In China, For China."
Joe Weinman systematically explained the universal principles of AI return on investment. The release of AI value follows a closed-loop path of "Perception—Decision—Execution—Optimization." Through four main avenues—automation replacement, process reengineering, predictive analytics, and personalized services—it achieves cost reduction, efficiency leaps, and quality improvement. The key for enterprises to capture AI dividends lies in choosing a suitable competitive strategy: either strengthening operations, reshaping products, innovating customer experiences, or pioneering new business models. Meanwhile, AI technology itself is evolving from current computing clusters towards neuromorphic, photonic, and quantum computing, with infrastructure also extending to the edge, oceans, and even space.
CICC Research Releases Significant 'Industrialized Digital Economy' Report
The CICC Insights large language model 'Analyst.Skill' made its debut at WAIC. The forum host, Wu Huimin, Executive Dean of CICC Research Institute and Executive Head of CICC Research Department, demonstrated live how to combine analyst expertise, research content, and large language model technology to explore new forms of all-weather, intelligent, and scenario-based investment research services. Addressing investment research needs in the AI era, CICC Insights continues to build a data-driven, intelligent capability foundation, providing clients with one-stop services including research reports, conference events, data metrics, research frameworks, and financial models. Through the 'Analyst.Skill' feature, it explores providing 24/7 professional support. From global research content to premium data assets, from professional analyst insights to intelligent investment research tools, CICC Insights is continuously exploring new paradigms for financial research services in the AI era.
Zhou Zipeng, Executive General Manager of CICC Research Institute, shared CICC research insights on the industrialized digital economy. The AI revolution is unbundling latent cognitive capabilities into measurable, deployable "intelligence supply," propelling the digital economy into a new stage of industrialization. Intelligence supply relies on fixed capital investment, with capital formation and depreciation cycles introducing economic fluctuations. Enterprises need to utilize "organizational intermediation" to establish execution pathways, leading to a time lag in productivity improvement. The report further reveals diverging AI development paths between China and the US: the US focuses deeply on frontier models and computing infrastructure, while China possesses unique advantages in application scenarios and the organizational intermediation layer. The industrialized digital economy is not a single race but a systematic, multi-layered competition of transformation.
Peng Wensheng, Chief Economist of CICC, Head of the Research Department, and Dean of CICC Research Institute, moderated a high-level dialogue. He engaged in an exchange with futurist and founding editor of *Wired* magazine, Kevin Kelly, on the topic "'Protopian' Capital: How to Align Investment with the Long-Term Returns of AI." From the perspectives of economics and capital markets, Peng Wensheng posed a series of questions on key issues such as the high capital expenditure of large models, token costs, sustainability of open-source models, trends towards AI centralization, data privacy, job displacement, and income distribution. He also compared the business models and network effects of AI and the internet. Kelly expressed that AI will drive social progress incrementally, with low-cost, specialized, and localized models expected to enhance competitiveness. Sovereign AI and public intelligence may coexist. Regarding the investment boom, he believes bubbles and losses may occur in the frontier model sector, but infrastructure investment will promote scientific innovation and productivity gains, constituting a "necessary bubble" with long-term social value.
Discussing the Future of Sci-Tech Innovation Development
During the forum's roundtable discussion session, Zhang Qing, Managing Director of CICC Capital, moderated a roundtable on the theme "Patient Capital: Accompanying Start-ups Towards Internationalized Sustainable Development." Participants included Lv Yunhe, Chairman of Saudi Vision Fund China; Jing Xutian, Partner at 5Y Capital; Luo Yihang, Co-founder and CEO of Shengshu Technology; Lai Caida, Chairman and CEO of XtalPi; Xiang Jingen, Founder and CEO of SpinQ; and Wang Xiaofeng, Algorithm Partner at Jijia Shijie. They engaged in in-depth discussions on AI development trends, AI application scenarios across various industries, trends in world models, and differentiated development paths.
Lou Xinyu, Executive Head of TMT in CICC Investment Banking Department and Managing Director, moderated a roundtable dialogue on the theme "Multi-party Collaboration of 'Technology-Scenario-Capital' to Empower the Future." Participants included Peng Yigang, Deputy Director of the Market Development Department at the Shanghai Stock Exchange; Jiang Jiali, Vice President of Global Listing Services at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing; Gu Canghai, Chief Architect of Kunlunxin; Zhang Hong, Executive Director and CFO of Xizhi Technology; Tang Wenbin, Co-founder and CEO of Yuanli Lingji; and Song Yachen, Founder and CEO of VAST. They held in-depth conversations on topics including reforms of the STAR Market, new explorations by the Hong Kong capital market in supporting sci-tech innovation, development trends of domestic AI computing infrastructure, large-scale implementation of Physical AI, and applications of world models, jointly envisioning the future of China's AI industry development.
Currently, profound global changes are accelerating, and a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is rapidly advancing, with global AI technological innovation entering an unprecedented period of activity. The development of frontier technology also relies on the support of a technology finance ecosystem. This conference thoroughly implemented the Party Central Committee's strategic deployment on advancing the major initiative of technology finance and accelerating the cultivation of new quality productive forces. It served as a vivid practice of leveraging the role of capital as a nexus to serve high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening. CICC pays close attention to and participates in AI development. It will continue to leverage the synergistic advantages of "Investment + Investment Banking + Research," working together with global partners and all sectors of society to build a new ecosystem and move towards a new future in the era of artificial intelligence.
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