Morning Star | A Look Back: The Exhibits and Talks You Couldn't Get Enough of at WAIC 2026

The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) was recently held in Shanghai. As one of the most influential industry gatherings in the global AI space, WAIC has steadily grown into a premier event, serving as a "technology weathervane, application showcase, industry accelerator, and governance forum." Through a rich array of forums, exhibitions, awards, competitions, and interactive experiences, WAIC provides the global AI community with an important platform to showcase cutting-edge research, discuss industry trends, and accelerate the growth of innovative projects. As one of the most forward-looking and influential venture capital firms in the AI sector, Qiming Venture Partners hosted a forum at WAIC for the fourth consecutive year. This year's Qiming Venture Partners · Entrepreneurship and Investment Forum — The Evolutionary Journey from Compute Origins to Application Deployment — was a sub-forum exploring how AI moves from underlying compute infrastructure to industrial implementation, viewed through the lens of innovation and entrepreneurship. To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 100 AI projects with a total investment of 12 billion RMB. Through end-to-end coverage spanning underlying compute, foundation models, multimodal technology, embodied artificial intelligence, and vertical applications, the firm has successfully identified and helped scale multiple benchmark innovative companies, witnessing AI's entry into an era of intelligence explosion. Additionally, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Qiming portfolio companies including Bilibili (NASDAQ: BILI, 09626.HK), Cix Technology, DH-Robotics, DaXiao Robotics, Houmo AI, Jialiang Brain Science, StepFun, SpacemiT, Mech-Mind Robotics, Shengshu Technology, Shuchuan Group, Tashi Zhihang, Tianlu Technology, WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 00800.HK), Infinigence AI, Infinite Lightyear, Frontis, Transwarp Technology (688031.SH), Inspire Robots, Yuaiweiwu, Unisound (09678.HK), Zhihu (NYSE: ZH, 02390.HK), Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), Yuanling AI, and Biren Technology (06082.HK) made appearances. Through hosting forums, showcasing core technology products, and sharing frontier perspectives, they demonstrated their technological innovation capabilities and growth potential. This article highlights select company developments.

Hosted Forums

01/ Infinigence AI Successfully Hosts AI Infrastructure Forum

During WAIC 2026, under the guidance of the WAIC Organizing Committee Office, Infinigence AI — a Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company — hosted the "Token Emergence, Everything Grows" AI Infrastructure Forum in Shanghai. At the forum, Lixue Xia, co-founder and CEO of Infinigence AI, unveiled for the first time the company's "Front Store, Back Factory, One Center" strategic layout for Agentic Infra. This encompasses: an autonomous infrastructure platform to maximize intelligent resource scale and serve the online evolution of next-generation Agentic AI; an Agentic MaaS large model service platform delivering extreme efficiency for the scaled, high-quality production of Tokens; and Agentic Infra industry solutions to accelerate AI-native empowerment across industries. At the event, Infinigence AI formally reached a strategic partnership with China Telecom Group Co., Ltd., and jointly launched the "Tianwen Initiative" ecosystem alliance with Shanghai Mobile. For AI terminal scenarios, Infinigence AI partnered with the National AI Application Pilot Base (mobile terminal direction) to release a new generation of fully stack-independent and controllable AI PCs. Centered on "edge-cloud collaboration × AI Agent × operating system × scenario intelligence," and relying on the Ruyi open-source community, the system features a RISC-V deeply customized domestic operating system supporting local multimodal large model operation on PCs — a fully domestic supply chain loop securing foundational software supply chain safety from the ground up. Additionally, Infinigence AI completed a strategic cooperation signing with MiniMax, and reached a series of strategic partnerships with industry-academia-research partners including Ant Digital Technology, Zhengxing Innovation, Southwest University (Chongqing) Industrial Technology Research Institute, Token Robotics, and VinRobotics.

02/ DaXiao Robotics Hosts World Model "Six Little Dragons" Summit Forum

A flagship agenda item of WAIC 2026 — the World Model "Six Little Dragons" Summit Forum — was held in Shanghai, hosted by the WAIC Organizing Committee and organized by Qiming portfolio company DaXiao Robotics. At the forum, DaXiao Robotics unveiled three core releases: Kairos World Model 3.1, Environmental Data Collection Solution 2.0, and complete solution packages covering three vertical scenarios, providing a full technical foundation for physical AI deployment.

Through a series of heavyweight strategic signings, DaXiao Robotics is closing the loop from physical AI infrastructure to commercial deployment. On the data foundation front, it partnered with Caohejing Development Zone to build an "Embodied Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Platform." For commercial deployment, it joined forces with PetroChina, Kuaike Da, SenseTime GoodBenefit, and ENN Group's Xinzhicognition to deeply deploy in unmanned warehouse stores, front warehouses, and intelligent inspection scenarios — reshaping fulfillment experiences and operational boundaries.

03/ Transwarp Technology Hosts "Cognitive Emergence · Data Rebirth" AI Theme Forum

During WAIC 2026, Qiming portfolio company Transwarp Technology (688031.SH) hosted the "Cognitive Emergence · Data Rebirth" AI theme forum. Experts, scholars, and industry representatives from sectors including industry, scientific research, manufacturing, government affairs, and healthcare gathered to discuss GPU-native cognitive databases, AI infrastructure reconstruction, and industry practices — jointly exploring the development direction of data infrastructure in the AI Agent era.

During the forum, the Sugon Intelligent Computing × Transwarp Technology joint release ceremony and the TIMC × Transwarp Technology strategic cooperation signing ceremony were held simultaneously. The former focused on domestic computing power and database collaborative innovation; the latter on international market expansion. These moves not only further completed Transwarp Technology's AI infrastructure ecosystem layout, but also demonstrated new progress in the industrialization and globalization of GPU-native cognitive databases.

Additionally, Transwarp Technology released a preview version of its new-generation GPU-native cognitive database for AI Agents at its exhibition booth, and showcased its full-stack AI Infra product matrix and latest industry practices covering AI-Ready data platforms, large model operations platforms, and enterprise-grade AI Agents.

At the exhibition, Transwarp Technology created four themed zones around GPU-native cognitive databases, AI-Ready and domestic data infrastructure, AI product experiences, and industry practices — systematically presenting its full-stack data and AI infrastructure capabilities and industry landing achievements for the AI Agent era.

Major Appearances

01/ Bilibili Becomes WAIC Official AI Technology Video Platform

At the 2026 WAIC, Bilibili (NASDAQ: BILI, 09626.HK) served as the "WAIC Official Cooperative AI Technology Video Platform," with exhibition booths at both the Expo and Xuhui venues. On-site, Bilibili displayed multiple AI works created by young UP creators, and launched the bilibili × WAIC AI Salon, inviting AI industry experts from academia, industry, investment, and research for video podcast livestreams revealing the latest industry developments.

This marked Bilibili's third consecutive year at WAIC. Q2 2026 data shows that over 190 million users watch AI-related content on Bilibili each month, making it the content community with the strongest AI mindshare in China. The exhibits and conversations presented at this year's WAIC are a microcosm of Bilibili's rich online AI content ecosystem.

Meanwhile, the "build in bilibili · AI Creation Open Competition" hosted by Bilibili saw its milestone works make their first offline exhibition and interactive debut at WAIC, drawing large crowds to stop and engage from the opening day. Additionally, at the Xuhui sub-venue, Bilibili hosted a limited-time pop-up featuring creator-built robots — seven units including an AI airship, bipedal robot, and wheeled-leg robot, all independently conceived and built by Bilibili UP creators.

02/ CIX Technology Showcases Five Product Series at WAIC 2026

As a leading domestic high-performance intelligent-agent CPU chip company and a Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company, CIX Technology presented its full five-series product matrix, covering AGX Station, Agentic Computer, Agentic Box, Agentic Infra, and Agentic Robot. The comprehensive showcase demonstrated end-to-end, edge-to-cloud collaborative Agentic Compute solutions spanning underlying chips, operating systems, and deployment scenarios.

One interactive installation at the CIX booth became a focal point that had visitors lining up — the "Generative AI Photo Booth." Powered by the CIX P1 device with 45 TOPS of compute, the system captured user photos on-site, then called the Qwen2.5-VL-7B model for image analysis and prompt generation. The Qwen3 large language model then crafted a personalized story based on the user's selected style and length, which was ultimately printed as a custom postcard. This application vividly demonstrated the on-device AI potential for creative content generation.

03/

DH-ROBOTICS Full-Matrix Dexterous Manipulation Products at WAIC

At WAIC 2026, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company DH-ROBOTICS showcased its complete dexterous manipulation product line ranging from two-finger to five-finger hands, demonstrating innovative applications across numerous scenarios. A highlight was the humanoid robot unstructured-environment grasping demo featuring the UDH-3-7 heavy-duty three-finger dexterous hand. Under visual guidance, the UDH-3-7 stably grasped objects of varying shapes and materials — cylinders, towels, courier boxes — adjusting its grip posture according to each object's form for reliable manipulation. The UDH-3-7 offers seven active degrees of freedom, 50N fingertip force output, and a maximum hand lift capacity of 15kg. Its fully direct-drive precision control and flexible backdrivable joint design balance dexterous manipulation with heavy-load tasks, meeting diverse grasping demands in complex environments.

DH-ROBOTICS also demonstrated a playful "two-hand bag passing" experience using ADH-5-6 and DH-5-6 five-finger dexterous hands. Multiple innovative demos cycled through, showcasing the critical evolution of robots from "being able to move" to "knowing how to operate."

04/

Houmo AI M50 Inside Devices on Display

At WAIC 2026's Zhangjiang Science Hall, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Houmo AI showcased multiple M50 Inside innovative AI terminals, concentrating on M50 chip applications across Agent Computer, intelligent mobile terminals, Embodied Artificial Intelligence, and edge inference scenarios — covering hot domains including intelligent office, intelligent education, personal companionship, and edge computing.

Houmo AI has already achieved deep integration of large-model on-device AI compute with multiple AI hardware innovations, establishing partnerships with dozens of leading terminal enterprises including Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Great Wall Motor, and China Mobile. This is driving scaled commercial deployment of the M50 chip across AI PCs, desktop robots, AI NAS, Agent Computers, and other diverse terminals — continuously expanding the boundaries of on-device AI commercialization.

05/

NeuroXess at WAIC 2026

Dr. Cao Peng, founder and CEO of Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company NeuroXess, was invited to speak at the WAIC · Amplified Individual forum themed "Seeing Concrete People in AI," delivering a keynote titled "Making the Silent Brain Heard: A Neuroscience Entrepreneur's AI Answer."

At the forum, Dr. Cao used the diagnosis and rehabilitation journeys of two patients as entry points to share explorations at the intersection of brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, and clinical needs. Meanwhile, at the WAIC exhibition floor, NeuroXess staff engaged with guests around the implantable neural stimulation system Epilcure™, discussing directions including EEG signal analysis, closed-loop stimulation, and individualized neural modulation.

06/

SpacemiT Demonstrates High-Performance RISC-V CPU Chips and Embodied AI Compute Solutions

Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company SpacemiT showcased its high-performance RISC-V CPU chips and Embodied Artificial Intelligence compute solutions, actively integrating into global AI technology innovation and supporting open-source development and global governance cooperation through concrete action. SpacemiT's K3 chip, released in early 2026, is the world's first mass-produced RISC-V chip compliant with the RVA23 specification. Looking toward Embodied Artificial Intelligence as a future market direction, the company has pioneered applying RISC-V architecture to robot-dedicated chips and completed real-scenario validation.

During the exhibition, SpacemiT's core team was invited to multiple industry forums. Founder and CEO Chen Zhijian delivered a keynote at the "RISC-V and AI Integration Development Forum" and participated in a roundtable at the Qiming Venture Partners Entrepreneurship and Investment Forum, exploring on-device AI chip innovation pathways with representatives from leading enterprises. Co-founder and President Sun Yanbang gave a keynote at the "RISC-V and Physical Intelligence Forum," interpreting how RISC-V homogeneous fusion computing opens innovative technical pathways for Embodied Artificial Intelligence.

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Mech-Mind Robotics Demonstrates Scaled Embodied AI Deployment at WAIC

This year, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Mech-Mind Robotics took "Scaling Physical AI" as its theme, presenting comprehensively upgraded general Embodied Artificial Intelligence "eye-brain-hand" full-stack technology products at WAIC. From "one brain, multiple forms" Embodied AI eye-brain-hand closed-loop capabilities, to the new-generation Mech-Hand multi-finger dexterous hand, to real-scenario-driven data flywheels, Mech-Mind Robotics systematically demonstrated new pathways for Physical AI toward scaled application.

Through eight on-site intelligent robot units, Mech-Mind Robotics fully demonstrated cross-industry, cross-scenario, cross-robot-form "eye-brain-hand" application capabilities. Specific demonstrations included: the first-ever showcase of humanoid robot collaborative loading/unloading and bin transport; upgraded humanoid robot shelf picking, humanoid robot sorting of massive object varieties, Mech-GPT multimodal large-model human-robot interaction, and transparent-object generalized grasping; as well as high-speed small-part unstructured feeding, wire harness plug precision assembly, and multi-specification workpiece feeding and assembly — applications already deployed at scale in industrial scenarios.

08/

Shengshu Technology General World Model Technology and Products on Display

Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Shengshu Technology showcased its general world model technology and products at the WAIC exhibition area. With the general world model as its foundation, Shengshu Technology continues building bridges connecting digital and physical worlds.

In the digital world, Vidu supports text-to-video, image-to-video, and reference-to-video creation, continuously improving content generation consistency, physical plausibility, and interactivity; Vidu S1 further advances video generation from offline content toward real-time interaction. In the physical world, the world action model Motubrain serves as a general brain driving multiple robots to understand, predict, and act upon the world — pushing the general world model from "visual reasoning" toward "physical decision-making." At the exhibition, attendees directly experienced world model applications in content production, real-time interaction, and Embodied Artificial Intelligence through demonstrations of Vidu Q3, Vidu S1, and Motubrain technologies and products.

Additionally, Shengshu Technology and Wondershare Technology Group Co., Ltd co-hosted the thematic forum "New Paradigms for AI Film and Television Productivity Driven by World Models." The forum connected AI infrastructure, world models, creation tools, and film and television content industry chains, gathering industry representatives from model development, compute, creation platforms, film production, and data services.

09/

DCG Partners with Arab Federation for Digital Economy

During WAIC 2026, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company DCG (Digital Communication Group) and the Arab Federation for Digital Economy (AFDE) formally signed a memorandum of understanding at DCG's exhibition booth. The two sides will carry out strategic cooperation in digital education and intelligent publishing across the Arab region.

Under the cooperation framework, DCG will export intelligent publishing technologies, product solutions, and technical implementation and training systems. The Arab Federation for Digital Economy will leverage its regional institutional coordination advantages to connect with education ministries, universities, and publishing organizations in the UAE and other Arab countries, opening up local channel resources to promote AI content technology for Arab digital education projects. Together, the two parties will expand Arabic content transformation and AI-powered smart learning services, laying the groundwork for subsequent formal agreements that will specify commercial licensing, operational responsibilities, and intellectual property arrangements.

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INF's Secure and Trustworthy Enterprise Agent Operating System Debuts at WAIC 2026

At this year's WAIC, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company INF showcased how its secure and trustworthy enterprise agent operating system enters different business scenarios across three directions: AI for Finance, AI for AI Infra, and AI for Science.

INF's secure and trustworthy enterprise agent operating system is not a single Copilot, not a fixed workflow, nor merely a task-specific agent. It functions more like a central nervous system for enterprise AI applications: connecting models, compute, knowledge, tools, processes, and applications, transforming dispersed business experience, industry rules, and compliance requirements into governable, operable, and auditable AI productivity.

Built on this system, AI is not simply invoked — it can understand tasks, call capabilities, coordinate workflows, and serve real business needs in an explainable, traceable, and verifiable manner within clearly defined security boundaries.

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Frontis Leadeep AI Debuts at WAIC 2026

At the WAIC 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference Xinhua Net "AI Leading Industrial Transformation" Sike Forum, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Frontis CTO Kaiyan Zhang delivered a presentation titled "If Models Aren't a Company's Moat, What Is?", systematically proposing the "industrial experience flywheel" methodology for enterprise intelligence for the first time, and releasing the latest models and products on-site: the first-generation meta-agent model Frontis-MA1 (35B, fully open-source), and the latest enterprise-grade AI-native organizational system Leadeep AI.

At the WAIC Expo Exhibition Hall, Frontis brought Leadeep AI — a "collaboration-decision-growth" system for enterprise AI organizations. Through integrated hardware and software technology, it silently accumulates implicit enterprise digital assets, assists leaders in high-dimensional decision-making through "personal avatars (ME) + expert think tanks (WE)", and drives employees to complete cross-terminal task loops using AI experts, ultimately achieving self-evolution of organizational intelligence and exponential business growth.

12/

Inspire Robots Debuts at WAIC 2026

As a national-level "little giant" leader in China's dexterous manipulation track, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Inspire Robots brought its six-series dexterous hand product matrix and micro servo cylinders to the conference, engaging in in-depth exchanges with industry partners, experts, and professional audiences from around the world. The company explored development directions for robotic dexterous manipulation, embodied AI, and humanoid robots, comprehensively demonstrating its technical accumulation and innovative achievements in dexterous manipulation.

At this year's WAIC, Inspire Robots focused on diverse application needs, showcasing its dexterous hand product matrix covering multiple scenarios. The RH56H1 series anthropomorphic five-finger dexterous hand, with its compact structure and high-performance output, provides more dexterous and efficient manipulation capabilities for small-form-factor robots. The RH5DG2 series meets complex interaction and precision operation demands with high degrees of freedom and refined manipulation capabilities. The RH56F1 series focuses on high-reliability application scenarios. The RH56E2 series offers stronger load capacity, providing stable support for heavy-load grasping. Meanwhile, the DFX and BFX series and other products were also displayed for their respective application scenarios.

13/

Yuaiweiwu AI Learning Products Debut at WAIC 2026

This year, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Yuaiweiwu made its first appearance at WAIC, creating an "Aixue AI Learning Lab" on-site to showcase its full-stack self-developed achievements in AI learning agents, digital humans, voiceprint noise reduction, and multimodal generation.

On the product side, Yuaiweiwu demonstrated its core product matrix including Aixue AI Thinking, Aixue AI Humanities, Xiabao AI, and Aixue Photo-Lecture Agent. Aixue is also gradually evolving toward an AI learning agent that covers all ages and subjects, accompanying learners through long-term growth. Yuaiweiwu also brought a complete set of multimodal perception and generation capabilities to WAIC, including "Zhiyin" — an AI teaching agent that can be generated in minutes — as well as leading digital human and AI voiceprint noise reduction technologies.

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Unisound Debuts U-Model Family at WAIC 2026

At the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Hall, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Unisound (09678.HK) showcased its U-Model matrix centered on U2 along with three agent clusters, demonstrating how Unisound's intelligent partners progress from understanding the world and perceiving needs to entering workflows and collaborating with humans to complete tasks — responding to the era's proposition through its own practice: letting intelligence continuously advance, and ensuring every technological progress remains oriented toward good.

Additionally, Unisound founder and CEO Wei Huang attended the "From Large Models to Agents: Toward a New Era of Autonomous Intelligence" forum and delivered a keynote speech, sharing Unisound's assessment of agent industrialization regarding the relationship between large models and agents, the value logic of industrial intelligence, the technical roadmap of Unisound's U2 native agent large model, and agent practices in high-value scenarios such as healthcare and medical insurance. Unisound co-founder and CTO Jiaen Liang attended the "Future Computing · Future Compute" forum and shared his profound insights on the essence of future computing and compute power.

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Zhihu's AI Technology Applications Debut at WAIC 2026

As a leading venue for cutting-edge AI discourse, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Zhihu (NYSE: ZH, 02390.HK) deeply collaborated with WAIC 2026, setting up exhibition booths in both Pudong and Xuhui districts to present Zhihu's diverse AI community ecosystem and developer innovation achievements. Meanwhile, the second Tech Club New Knowledge Technology Conference also landed at WAIC 2026, bringing together experts, developers, and answerers from various fields to push AI frontier exploration from theory toward real-world use and creation, adding unique perspective collisions and observational vistas to the global AI gathering.

At the Pudong World Expo Exhibition Hall, Zhihu created an AI Builder booth under the theme "Everyone Is a Creator," using interactive experiences such as an AI creator map and identity badges to connect multiple partner booths, allowing audiences to unlock core creator capabilities in the AI era through exploration, experience, and discussion. Zhihu also launched its new "AI Kanshan" feature at WAIC, which is gradually rolling out on the Zhihu App to bring users a more intelligent and vivid community interaction experience.

At the Xuhui West Bund Exhibition Hall, Zhihu built an "AI Last Mile" quality inspection station, focusing on showcasing the community AI ecosystem. Numerous developer works from Zhihu's "AI Works Project Square" made their collective debut: the "Cyber Kanshan" project presented a desktop smart electronic pet living on an e-ink screen; the "Colore" project created personalized clothing matching solutions through AI visual analysis; the "Breakup Detox" project is a pure healing check-in tool specifically designed to break negative inertia and regain a sense of control. Zhihu's innovative data training product SoTALab and social platform for global entrepreneurs and practitioners SmallWOD were also showcased, demonstrating Zhihu's increasingly flourishing AI ecosystem from multiple dimensions.

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Yuanli Lingji Partners with StepFun to Demonstrate Robot Assembly of Great Wall Model

At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Yuanli Lingji partnered with StepFun to showcase a hardcore challenge: six robots working collaboratively for 15 consecutive hours to autonomously assemble 81,920 building blocks into a brick Great Wall measuring 3.5 meters long, 1.5 meters wide, and 1.1 meters at its highest point. The robots achieved sub-millimeter precision, with motion accuracy in the 0.1 to 1 millimeter range. This marked the first time globally that robots have autonomously assembled a building-block model of such scale and precision.

Powering this challenge was Yuanli Lingji's self-developed Embodied Artificial Intelligence general-purpose foundation model DM0.5. DM0.5 represents a major upgrade across three dimensions: training data scale, model architecture, and open-world generalization capability — making it the first embodied large model with truly massive generalization abilities. It can autonomously execute tasks across different robot types without requiring separate end-to-end training for each individual machine. This challenge validated DM0.5's long-horizon memory and its error-correction capabilities through physical feedback.

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Biren Technology Makes Major Debut at WAIC 2026

During WAIC 2026, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Biren Technology (06082.HK) officially unveiled its next-generation NPO optical interconnect and distributed disaggregated architecture supernode solution, supporting single supernode Scale-up expansion to 1,024 cards. Biren Technology co-founder and CTO Hong Zhou and VP of AI Framework Architecture Yunfan Ding delivered keynote speeches, systematically presenting the company's complete 1,024-card supernode solution spanning chips, protocols, systems, and applications.

Additionally, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, ZTE, in partnership with Lightelligence, Biren Technology, and multiple collaborators, earned a place on the SAIL list and captured the SAIL Star award for their project "Domestic High-Performance Matrix Supernode Based on OEX+dOCS Architecture."

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WeRide Presents Its Physical AI Scale-Up Report Card at WAIC 2026

At the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center during WAIC 2026, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 00800.HK) drew large crowds with hands-on experiences of its L4-level Robotaxi GXR and the GAC N60 equipped with its L2++ one-stage end-to-end ADAS solution WRD 3.0. WeRide's newly released physical AI cognitive foundation large model WITT also became a focal point of attention.

The Robotaxi GXR is WeRide's flagship L4-level mass-production robotaxi, built on a physical AI high-performance computing platform capable of navigating complex urban road conditions. Currently, WeRide Robotaxi has rolled out in 12+ cities globally, with a worldwide fleet exceeding 1,500 vehicles, and has achieved fully unmanned operations in four cities — Guangzhou, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai — truly integrating into daily urban transportation.

This globalization path has also earned authoritative national recognition. At the conference's main forum, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, released the China AI·Benefiting the World (2026) case collection on-site. WeRide's autonomous driving practice in the UAE was selected as one of the top ten AI cases, becoming the only autonomous driving enterprise among them, demonstrating China's leading level in participating in global industrial cooperation for autonomous driving.

Exhibited alongside the Robotaxi GXR, the GAC N60 made its appearance equipped with WeRide's L2++ one-stage end-to-end ADAS solution WRD 3.0. WRD 3.0 previously achieved an unprecedented six consecutive championships in the China Intelligent Driving Competition, securing near 30 vehicle model designations from OEMs, and has also gone overseas technologically to Germany, France, Japan, and other locations for road testing and adaptation validation.

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Tianwu Technology Exhibits AI-Driven Full-Stack Protein R&D Platform

Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Tianwu Technology showcased its self-developed core achievement at its booth: the conversational protein research intelligent agent MatwingsVenus™ (Xiaowu™), which was selected as one of WAIC's "Treasures of the Exhibition." Unlike AlphaFold's protein structure prediction, Xiaowu™ leverages its underlying functional tag database to predict protein function directly from sequence, enabling end-to-end protein product delivery through wet-dry iteration. This dramatically compresses the traditional protein R&D cycle from 2–5 years down to 2–6 months, reduces experimental samples from tens of thousands to hundreds, and boosts single-sample success rates from 1% to 30%.

On this platform, users need no coding or model-building — simply issuing instructions through everyday conversation completes protein design and prediction, with one-click activation of automated laboratories for full-process synthesis and functional verification. This substantially lowers the barrier to protein R&D, making AI-driven innovation accessible to capital-constrained SMEs and research institutions alike — an important practice in making AI more inclusive and universally beneficial.

Key Insights

01/

StepFun's Qi Yin Takes the Stage at WAIC 2026 Opening Main Forum

Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company StepFun Chairman and Qianli Technology Chairman Qi Yin attended the conference opening as a distinguished guest, delivering a keynote speech at the main forum titled When Intelligent Agents Enter the Physical World. Qi Yin judged that in 2026, model capabilities are crossing a critical inflection point — AI has advanced from executing tasks continuously for mere seconds to working independently for dozens of hours, with the industry now standing at the foot of the AGI summit. Following natural language, programming is becoming an important benchmark for measuring AI capability leaps. As intelligent agent models and next-generation terminal products accelerate their convergence, intelligence is moving from digital screens into the real physical world, and intelligent agents will evolve from chat tools into the minimal productive units capable of perception, decision-making, and task execution. In the future, engineers, designers, researchers, and others will each possess dedicated intelligent agents, giving one person the capabilities of an entire team.

Qi Yin noted that the intelligent agent wave will drive three structural transformations: new systems, new vehicles, and new networks. At the new systems level, intelligent agent capability is jointly determined by model capability and intelligent agent operating system capability — Agentic OS, by connecting models with data, tools, interfaces, and devices, determines how far an intelligent agent can go. At the new vehicles level, terminal design philosophy will evolve further from "human-centered" toward "human-machine symbiosis" — computers, phones, cars, and robots will become different "bodies" of the same intelligent agent in different scenarios, supporting intelligence's continuous presence across terminals, free migration, and collaborative task execution. At the new networks level, A2A networks will connect humans with intelligent agents; intelligent agents will possess their own identities, capabilities, and credit, autonomously finding partners, organizing collaboration, and completing transactions — becoming important infrastructure for the intelligent agent economy.

02/

Tashi Zhihang's Yilun Chen Appears at WAIC 2026 Opening Main Forum

At the main forum of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Conference on Global AI Governance, Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company Tashi Zhihang Founder and CEO Yilun Chen was invited to participate in the roundtable dialogue "From Virtual to Reality: How World Models Drive Embodied Artificial Intelligence," sharing his thoughts on world models, Embodied Artificial Intelligence, and industrial applications, and officially releasing the new-generation Embodied Artificial Intelligence-native foundation model AWE3.5. He stated that world models represent not only an important direction for AI technology evolution but will also become a foundational capability for driving new-quality productive forces and empowering the real economy.

Yilun Chen believes that in the Embodied Artificial Intelligence domain, a true world model needs to predict not only the robot's next action but also how the world state will evolve after that action is executed. "World models understand the world; physical AI changes the world. If you only predict the action without knowing its result, you cannot guarantee the reliability of robot behavior. A true world model must simultaneously understand the causal relationship between action and environment." From its founding day, Tashi Zhihang has adhered to a Foundational Model + App path: on one hand building native foundation models oriented toward the physical world, on the other entering real industrial scenes through vertical applications, allowing AI to be validated and delivered in real tasks.

03/

Insilico Medicine's Alex Zhavoronkov Takes the Stage at WAIC 2026 Opening Main Forum

On the first day of WAIC, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), a Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company, was invited to deliver a keynote speech titled Toward Pharmaceutical Superintelligence at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference Opening Main Forum, systematically explaining how AI and automation technologies empower innovative drug R&D.

He envisioned a future community where AI-powered biotech innovation and health ecosystems are deeply integrated, stating that "as we advance toward pharmaceutical superintelligence, we will not only reshape the future of healthcare but also decipher the deep code of life — extending healthspan from a distant dream into a technological dividend gifted to humanity by this era." Currently, artificial intelligence is accelerating the reconstruction of paradigms in the biopharmaceutical industry and life science research, comprehensively empowering innovative drug and device R&D, and becoming the key variable for breaking the "ten years, one billion dollars" rule of innovative drug development while improving innovation efficiency and success rates.

Past Highlights

Qiming Headlines | WAIC Qiming Venture Partners · Entrepreneurship and Investment Forum — From Computing Origin to Application Landing: A Journey of Evolution Successfully Held Guest Lineup Revealed | 2026 WAIC Qiming Venture Partners · Entrepreneurship and Investment Forum — From Computing Origin to Application Landing: A Journey of Evolution Agenda Premiere | 2026 WAIC Qiming Venture Partners · Entrepreneurship and Investment Forum — From Computing Origin to Application Landing: A Journey of Evolution

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 inception, 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 enterprises, of which more than 210 have gone public on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means, while over 80 have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns in their industries.

Many Qiming Venture Partners 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), AusperBio, Yuanxin Technology, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, StepFun, and others.