According to the latest reports, the closing press conference for the 22nd China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) was held in Nanning on the 21st. Wei Zhaohui, Secretary-General of the CAEXPO Secretariat, stated at the conference that AI emerged as the standout feature of this year’s expo. It featured 16 AI-themed events, including an opening speech delivered “without notes” using AI glasses, the inaugural AI Pavilion, and the introduction of the AI Expo Intelligent Entity. These initiatives have set a new benchmark for AI-empowered exhibitions. The AI-enhanced Expo is actively propelling China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation from “traditional channels” onto a “new track” driven by digital and intelligent empowerment.
Setting New Standards for Trade Shows
This year’s East Asia Expo achieved multiple breakthroughs in AI applications, establishing a new “AI + Exhibition” model. From the opening ceremony’s ‘scriptless’ speech enabled by AI glasses, to the inaugural 10,000-square-meter AI Pavilion, and the launch of China’s first multi-scenario exhibition AI agent “AI East Expo,” a series of initiatives covered the entire exhibition process. The “AI East Fair” AI entity supports eight ASEAN languages and delivers personalized services across 24 scenarios. It enables seamless access with a single QR code for everything from itinerary planning to business opportunity matching, fundamentally transforming the traditional manual exhibition and conference management model.
AI Cooperation Yields Strong Results
This year’s Canton Fair saw extensive participation from multiple countries in the AI sector, yielding fruitful outcomes. Data shows that the inaugural AI Pavilion gathered nearly 200 enterprises (including China’s leading AI companies, unicorns, and ASEAN startup teams), with trade deals exceeding 140 million yuan. Products such as surgical robots, AI glasses, and drones were highly favored by ASEAN buyers, with Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia demonstrating particularly strong procurement demand. Concurrently, official agencies from ASEAN countries actively responded. Malaysia’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology, and Brunei’s Innovation Lab organized corporate delegations to exhibit for the first time, facilitating the integration of AI technology with domestic industries. More significantly, the China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Application Cooperation Center and the China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Open Source Community were simultaneously launched, establishing a long-term platform for regional countries to share AI technologies and jointly build application ecosystems.
