Morning Star | Spotlight Moment! Qiming Venture Partners and Portfolio Companies Win Major Awards at WAIC 2026
Including the 2026 AI Person of the Year, the Yunfan Award, the WAIC Future Tech α³⁵ Young Leaders list, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference's highest honor — the SAIL Award — as well as the "Treasure of the Pavilion" and other major award winners.
The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) was recently held in Shanghai. During the conference, several major awards were announced, including the 2026 AI Figures of the Year, the Cloud Sail Award, the WAIC Future Tech α³⁵ Young Leaders list, the SAIL Award — WAIC's highest honor — the Hall Treasures, and other series awards. Qi Hu, Executive Director at Qiming Venture Partners, and multiple portfolio companies received numerous accolades.
01 / Three Qiming-Backed Entrepreneurs Named 2026 AI Figures of the Year
Recently, China Media Group launched its large-scale AI industry development program, "2026 China · AI Gala." The event unveiled ten "2026 AI Figures of the Year," honoring industry pioneers who explore the unknown and answer the era-defining questions of AI. He Wang, founder and Chief Technology Officer of Galaxy Universal; Yu Wang, founder of Infinigence AI; and Linfeng Zhang, founder and Chief Scientist of DeepWise, all received this honor. From foundational technological innovation to industrial application, from embodied intelligence and large models to AI infrastructure and scientific intelligence — they lead innovation in their respective fields, marking the year's coordinates for the intelligent era through their latest practices and fruitful achievements.
02 / Tashi Zhihang's Wenchao Ding Wins 2026 WAIC Cloud Sail "Bright Star" Award
The 2026 WAIC Young Partners Party and Cloud Sail Award Night was held in Shanghai. The event was guided by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, the Shanghai Municipal Talent Bureau, and the WAIC Organizing Committee, and co-hosted by the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Synced. During the event, the 2026 WAIC Cloud Sail "Bright Star" winners were announced. Wenchao Ding, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Tashi Zhihang and a young researcher at Fudan University, was selected.
This award focuses on AI pioneers under 35, including top young scientists and entrepreneurs. It examines technical breakthroughs, industrial applications, and entrepreneurial practice, spotlighting the young forces driving AI industry development.
03 / Qiming's Qi Hu Named WAIC Future Tech α³⁵ Young Leader
WAIC 2026 released its Future Tech α³⁵ Young Leaders list this year, with Qi Hu, Executive Director at Qiming Venture Partners, among the selected. This evaluation does not solely emphasize short-term financial investment performance; rather, it values "investment soul" — seeking young investment elites with forward-looking technological insight in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, life sciences, and new energy, who dare to bet on humanity's shared future.
Qi Hu commented: "The most likely false consensus in AI right now is the industry's excessive focus on the next technological breakthrough, while relatively underestimating the importance of this generation of large models completing their industrial revolution. From TCP/IP protocols to Bayesian theory to CNNs, their value has continuously unfolded through long-term industrial practice. This generation of large models is no different — still in the early stages of completing that industrial revolution. Truly great foundational technologies must not only solve problems facing entire industries, but also continuously expand AI's capability boundaries and possess sufficiently long lifespans. I'm more optimistic about large models evolving from learning human knowledge toward Experience Scaling, like AlphaGo Zero, continuously creating new experience through self-play. In non-consensus directions, I'm very bullish on Scientific Foundation Models — they have the potential to become the underlying foundational capability for key scientific fields such as life sciences and materials science."
04 / Six Qiming Portfolio Companies Named to SAIL Award TOP30
The World Artificial Intelligence Conference · SAIL (Super AI Leader) Award TOP30 list was previously released. Qiming portfolio companies Biren Technology (06082.HK), Matwings Technology, Sharpa, Tashi Zhihang, DaXiao Robotics, and XunTu Technology were named to the SAIL Award TOP30 list.
The SAIL Award is the highest honor of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference and a highly influential, prestigious international award in global AI. Upholding the philosophy of "pursuing excellence, leading the future," with transcendence, empowerment, innovation, and leadership as core values, it discovers quality AI projects worldwide. Focusing on technological breakthroughs, application innovation, and governance exploration, it selects cutting-edge achievements with industry benchmark value that enhance human welfare — serving as a core barometer for global AI technology iteration and industrial implementation.
05 / Two Qiming Portfolio Companies Named WAIC Hall Treasures
The WAIC Hall Treasures list was recently released. StepFun's terminal brand STEPX's self-developed large-model-native intelligent agent phone, STEPX Neo, and Matwings Technology's MatwingsVenus™ (XiaoWu™) conversational protein design agent were selected.
STEPX Neo is the first large-model-native intelligent agent phone independently developed by StepFun's terminal brand STEPX. It passed the first batch of L3-level tests under the national "AI Terminal Intelligence Grading" standards, making it currently the only intelligent agent phone with an L3 certificate — establishing a national benchmark for AI terminal intelligence levels.
Matwings Technology's MatwingsVenus™ (XiaoWu™) conversational protein research agent requires no coding or model-building. Like chatting with DeepSeek, users simply give instructions to complete protein design, prediction, and validation. Traditional protein R&D takes 2–5 years, with tens of thousands of experimental samples and a 1% success rate. XiaoWu™ compresses this cycle to 2–6 months, reduces samples to around 100, and raises success rates to 30%. Supported by 10 billion protein sequence data points, its model has long topped international prediction leaderboards. It can also directly call AI-automated dark laboratories to achieve a "design-synthesis-detection" wet-dry closed loop. In just six months, it designed a high-efficiency plastic-degrading enzyme with performance far exceeding decade-long international R&D efforts.
06 / WeRide Selected as One of Ten Cases for WAIC 2026
At the main forum of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, released the "China AI · Benefits the World (2026)" case collection. WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 00800.HK), a Qiming portfolio company and global leading autonomous driving technology company, was selected for the Top Ten AI Technology and Product International Cooperation Cases in "China AI · Benefits the World (2026)" — becoming the only autonomous driving enterprise among them.
Since 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission has released the "China AI · Benefits the World" case collection for three consecutive years, selecting AI international cooperation projects with practical effectiveness and demonstrative significance. This year's ten selected cases cover broader regions and countries, focus on richer "AI+" cooperation scenarios, and collectively present how Chinese artificial intelligence deeply integrates with actual needs worldwide — showcasing Chinese wisdom and solutions for global AI-enabled development.
The significance of WeRide's UAE expansion project lies in bringing China's L4 autonomous driving technology into overseas urban transportation systems, providing a benchmark practice for Chinese AI supporting local transportation upgrades. This selection reflects both the project's operational effectiveness and demonstrative value locally, as well as the leading level of Chinese autonomous driving in global industrial cooperation.
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Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since its establishment, the firm has focused on investing in outstanding early- and growth-stage companies in Technology and Healthcare.
To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through mergers and acquisitions. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns.
Many Qiming portfolio companies have grown into the most influential companies in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ: BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE: ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), Hesai Technology (NASDAQ: HSAI, 02525.HK), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 00800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Biren Technology (06082.HK), Zhipu (02513.HK), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ: ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ: SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), SinoCellTech (688520.SH), Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), Hope Medicine, Yuanxin Technology, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, StepFun, and others.