From Lab to Production Line: HKPC Returns to WAIC 2026 with AI-Powered Manufacturing Solutions Strengthening Shanghai-Hong Kong Collaboration for Global Expansion

(Hong Kong, 20 July 2026) The four-day (17-20 July) "2026 World AI Conference & High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance" (WAIC) concluded successfully on 20 July. The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) joined over 1,100 industrial and technology associations from around the world on the same stage, creating an immersive “AI Smart Factory” exhibition zone to comprehensively demonstrate how artificial intelligence (AI) is moving from the lab to the production line, delivering real-world applications and commercial value. The participation not only showcased Hong Kong’s I&T achievements but also signaled Hong Kong’s proactive role as a “super value-adder”, advancing the national “AI+” initiative, deepening the integration of AI tech innovation with industrial innovation, fostering new productive forces, and contributing vital support to national development.

President XI Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of WAIC, emphasising the need to make coordinated advances in the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries, the cultivation and growth of emerging industries and forward-looking planning for future industries, so that all sectors and businesses can benefit from AI. He also noted the need to strengthen risk-awareness, and ensure that AI is secure and controllable, put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning and emergency response systems in order to strengthen the line of security, and ensure that AI is always under human control. To advance global AI capacity building, President XI announced that in the next five years, Mainland will provide developing countries with 5,000 opportunities in AI training and seminar programs, join hands to build a just and equitable system for global AI governance.

Professor SUN Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, and Ms WONG Hoi Yee, Director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Shanghai, visited the HKPC booth on the first day (17 July), reaffirming their support for Hong Kong's innovation and technology (I&T) development and HKPC's efforts in advancing AI-powered industrial transformation. Prof SUN stated that AI is undoubtedly a key direction for Hong Kong to achieve high-quality development and that Hong Kong must actively align with national development strategies. He stressed that the HKSAR Government is fully embracing AI development, enhancing AI innovation, and coordinating development with security by refining relevant laws, regulations, and policy frameworks. Placing special emphasis on internationalisation, he stressed that Hong Kong will continue to play the roles of “super connector” and “super value-adder”, serving as the nation’s gateway to the world and a window linking the Mainland with the international community.

Mr Edmond LAI, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Mainland Business of HKPC, said: “In his opening remarks, President Xi pointed out that the value of AI lies in benefitting all sectors and businesses, but it must be underpinned by safety and controllability. Prof SUN also emphasised that Hong Kong should actively embrace AI, refine regulations, and leverage its international advantages. This sets a clear direction for Hong Kong’s I&T community and aligns with HKPC’s longstanding work to cultivate the AI ecosystem. This year at WAIC, we are focusing on ‘application and empowerment’ and ‘safety and governance’, showcasing the technological outcomes we have built over time. In terms of application and empowerment, our multipurpose AI platform “HKPC Picasso” significantly lowers technical barriers, allowing more enterprises and practitioners to adopt AI; to date it has supported the development of over 500 solutions for the industry. In terms of safety and governance, we support enterprises strengthen AI safety and governance while promoting intelligent applications. The 15th Five-Year Plan entrusts the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region with leading high-quality development. HKPC will continue to be a trusted partner in enterprises’ AI transformation, linking the GBA’s strong manufacturing base with the YRD region’s innovation resources to equip enterprises to seize go global opportunities, contributing Hong Kong’s strength to building a safe, prosperous, and inclusive global AI ecosystem.”

“HKPC Picasso” Drives AI Adaption from Lab to Factory

As a core engine for technology adaption, HKPC’s self-developed “HKPC Picasso” platform, is characterised by low barriers and rapid deployment, which dramatically reduces technical thresholds and costs. At this year’s WAIC, HKPC turned its booth into an “AI Smart Factory” through this platform. Centered on the theme “AI Adaption in Manufacturing,” it focused on three areas, Smart Decision-Making and Control, Quality Control, Logistics and Warehousing, and Future Technologies and Governance, showcasing a range of replicable AI technologies that can be deployed directly on factory floors.

Among the highlights was the “AI-Defined Humanoid Robot” with generalisation capabilities that fuses a multimodal VTLA model with tactile feedback. It can unpack and sort like a human in dynamic factory environments, breaking through the bottlenecks of traditional industrial automation in handling variability and providing a vivid demonstration of “AI Adaption in Manufacturing”. In addition, the “AI Machine Vision Inspection Solution” comes with built-in commonly used AI models, supports data integration and auto-labeling, automatically identifies product defects, and offers customisable model options. The “AI-Powered Manufacturing Intelligence Platform” integrates fragmented production line data, rapidly warns of downtime risks, and pinpoints anomalies, turning seasoned operators’ experience into quantifiable indicators to help enterprises understand production status more comprehensively and evidence-based—drawing many corporate representatives to experience it on-site and discuss collaboration. Looking ahead to the next generation of compute, the booth also showcased hybrid quantum computing frameworks and algorithms, illustrating how the powerful compute of quantum technologies can combine with AI algorithms as the future form of industrial AI.

HKPC has long responded proactively to the national “AI+” initiative, empowering a broad range of sectors through AI. In traditional industries, AI’s core value lies in improving quality and efficiency by using data-driven decision support to enable human–machine collaboration, advancing smart, scalable, and lean production processes. In emerging industries, AI’s core value lies in breaking limits—replacing human work in hard-to-reach or high-risk environments, transcending physical and safety boundaries, and driving a qualitative leap from “automation” to “autonomy,” opening up new possibilities for future industries.

Leveraging Complementary Strengths Between Shanghai and Hong Kong to Enable Bidirectional Tech Exchange

During WAIC, HKPC also hosted the “New Productive Forces Meet-up” event and “Industry Network Clusters (Shanghai)”, bringing together over a hundred of representatives from Government, industry, academia, and research to discuss AI and robotics applications, integrated industry growth, and go global strategies for enterprises. Participants noted that Hong Kong’s internationalised research ecosystem, robust intellectual property protection, and standards-setting aligned with international norms make it an ideal base for piloting, translating, and validating frontier technologies. The YRD region, with its ultra-large market, strong industrial base, and complete supply chains, offers advantages for rapid mass production of technological outcomes. Hong Kong is serving as the shared international support point for both the GBA and the YRD region; Mainland I&T enterprises can choose Hong Kong as a strategic option for internationalisation, forming an innovation chain of “incubated in the Mainland, serviced by Hong Kong, and reaching global markets”. This differentiated, complementary development fosters high-quality, two-way technology exchange: YRD leverage Hong Kong to align with international standards and help technologies and brands go global, while Hong Kong taps YRD application scenarios and industrial resources to accelerate AI iteration—achieving mutual benefit and win–win outcomes.

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At this year’s WAIC, HKPC transformed its exhibition area into an immersive “AI Smart Factory,” showcasing a range of practical, ready-to-deploy intelligent solutions and attracting industry leaders, enterprises, and investors from around the world to visit and exchange ideas.

Professor SUN Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry visited the HKPC booth on the first day (17 July), reaffirming their support for Hong Kong's I&T development and HKPC's efforts in advancing AI-powered industrial transformation.

At the exhibition, HKPC showcased multiple solutions developed on its “HKPC Picasso” platform, drawing widespread attention from on-site visitors, experts, and corporate representatives and receiving an enthusiastic response.

During WAIC, HKPC also hosted the “New Productive Forces Meet-up” event and “Industry Network Clusters (Shanghai)”, bringing together over a hundred of representatives from government, industry, academia, and research to discuss AI and robotics applications, integrated industry growth, and go global strategies for enterprises.