WAIC 2026: Dates, Venue, Xi Jinping Keynote & Full Guide

TL;DR: WAIC 2026 (World Artificial Intelligence Conference) runs July 17-20, 2026, across three Shanghai venues: the Expo Centre, Zhangjiang Science Hall, and the West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center. This ninth edition is the biggest yet, with 140-plus forums, over 1,000 exhibitors, and Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering his first-ever in-person keynote at the event. Tickets are on sale now through the Hi WAIC app, though most general pricing isn’t publicly listed in English.

I track AI conferences the same way I track AI tool deals: I want to know if the thing behind the headline is actually worth your time, not just whether it made a splashy press release. WAIC has been running since 2018, and most years it’s a mix of genuine research announcements and government-scale spectacle. The 2026 edition is different for one reason that has nothing to do with product launches. Xi Jinping is attending in person for the first time in the conference’s history, and that single fact has pulled WAIC into international headlines in a way it never has before.

I’m writing this two days before the event opens, because that’s the honest situation most readers outside China are in right now. If you’re weighing whether to still try to attend, whether the news coverage is worth following, or whether this event even matters to a Western AI buyer or builder, here’s what the official site, government sources, and cross-checked press coverage actually say. All facts below come from the official WAIC website, cross-referenced against government and independent press reporting, because Chinese state-linked conference sites are notoriously light on the practical details international attendees need.

If you only need the short version: WAIC 2026 is a massive, government-backed AI showcase in Shanghai, not a Western-style practitioner conference with ticket tiers and masterclasses. It’s worth following closely for the policy and product signals it sends, but attending in person on two days’ notice is unrealistic for almost anyone without a China visa already in hand. Here’s the full breakdown.

Key Takeaways

• Four days, three Shanghai venues. WAIC 2026 runs July 17-20 across the Expo Centre, Zhangjiang Science Hall, and the West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center, spanning more than 100,000 square meters of exhibition space for the first time.
• Xi Jinping’s first in-person keynote is the real story. Chinese President Xi Jinping will open the conference in person, a first since WAIC launched in 2018, according to the South China Morning Post.
• Scale most Western conferences can’t match. Organizers expect 140-plus forums, 1,400-plus international guests, and over 1,000 exhibitors showing more than 3,000 products, including 300-plus global product debuts.
• A genuine academic track sits alongside the trade-show floor. The new WAIC Academic program is chaired by Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao and features Turing and Nobel laureates including Richard Sutton, Yoshua Bengio, and Thomas Sargent.
• Ticket details are thin for international readers. Main-conference access runs through the Hi WAIC app, but general public pricing isn’t clearly published in English. The co-located WAIC Academic track does publish RMB pricing.

WAIC 2026 is not the conference to book a flight for two days out. It’s the conference to watch closely, because the policy and product signals coming out of it will shape how AI gets regulated and sold for the next year.

What Is WAIC 2026?

WAIC 2026, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, is a government-organized AI summit held annually in Shanghai, combining a main forum program, a large-scale exhibition floor, an academic track, and a high-level meeting on global AI governance. The 2026 edition is jointly hosted by Chinese government bodies including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government.

That list of co-organizers matters. This isn’t a vendor-run trade show with a government ribbon-cutting bolted on. WAIC functions as China’s flagship platform for demonstrating AI policy direction and industrial capability at the same time, which is exactly why Xi Jinping’s decision to attend in person this year is being read internationally as a signal, not just a photo opportunity. Reporting from CGTN confirms the National Development and Reform Commission will use the event to release an AI governance action plan covering eight areas, including AI security and intelligent computing.

The event runs under the theme “Intelligent Partners, Co-create the Future” (also translated as “AI Partnership for a Brighter Future”), with programming split across two core tracks: intelligent computing and embodied intelligence, each drawing 200-plus participating enterprises. If you’re used to Western AI conferences built around a handful of keynotes and a modest expo hall, WAIC’s scale is a genuinely different category of event.

When and Where Is WAIC 2026?

WAIC 2026 takes place July 17-20, 2026, across three linked venue clusters in Shanghai: the Expo Centre and Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center in Pudong (main forums and the flagship exhibition), Zhangjiang Science Hall (chips and core compute infrastructure), and the West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center (consumer-facing AI and entertainment applications). This is the first year the exhibition footprint has passed 100,000 square meters.

Splitting the event across three physical locations is a change from earlier editions, which concentrated mostly around the Expo Centre. It reflects how much the exhibition has grown: organizers are showing 108 chips, 261 foundation models, 208 embodied-intelligence terminals, and 300-plus working robots and machines, according to press coverage. That’s not content you can fit into a single hall anymore.

For international attendees, the practical reality is blunt. Shanghai Pudong International Airport is the main entry point, and China’s visa processing timeline means anyone reading this without a visa already approved is not making it onsite for the July 17 opening. That’s not a knock on the event. It’s just the honest math on a four-day conference you’re finding out about with 48 hours’ notice.

Quick facts:

Detail	Information
Event	WAIC 2026 (World Artificial Intelligence Conference)
Dates	July 17-20, 2026
Venues	Expo Centre / Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, Zhangjiang Science Hall, West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center (Shanghai, China)
Format	In-person, government-organized, forums plus exhibition plus academic track
Scale	140+ forums, 1,000+ exhibitors, 1,400+ guests, 100,000+ sqm exhibition space
Themes	Intelligent computing, embodied intelligence, AI governance, AI for Science
Official site	worldaic.com.cn

Who Should Attend WAIC 2026?

WAIC is built for a different audience than most conferences I cover on this site. The stated participant mix includes AI researchers, technology executives, government policy officials, startup founders, investors, and hardware and robotics engineers, and the event’s scale reflects that breadth. This is not primarily a hands-on workshop event for individual practitioners the way a smaller Western testing or marketing conference would be.

You’ll get real value from following WAIC 2026 if you fit one of these profiles:

• Policy and AI governance watchers who need to see the actual AI governance action plan the National Development and Reform Commission is releasing at the event, not a secondhand summary weeks later.
• Hardware, chip, and robotics teams tracking China’s embodied-intelligence progress, given the exhibition floor is showing 208 embodied-intelligence terminals and 300-plus working machines.
• AI researchers interested in the new WAIC Academic track, where Turing and Nobel laureates are presenting alongside Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering members.
• Founders and product leads at AI companies who want an early read on which foundation models and products China is putting up against Western competitors, since 300-plus products are debuting globally at this event.
• Anyone weighing China market entry for an AI product, given the scale of enterprise participation across the intelligent computing and embodied intelligence tracks.

Here’s the honest caveat, and it’s a bigger one than usual. If you’re an independent SEO, marketer, or SaaS founder like most of the people I write for on this site, WAIC 2026 is not a conference you’re flying to on short notice, and it may not be the right conference for you at all even with more lead time. It’s built for researchers, policymakers, and large enterprises, not solo operators comparing AI writing tools.

I had a founder in my community, Devansh, who runs a small AI content-repurposing tool out of Bangalore, message me this week asking whether he should scramble for a last-minute flight once he saw the Xi Jinping headline everywhere. My honest answer: no. He doesn’t have a China visa in hand, the event isn’t selling him a practitioner ticket with workshops built for his stage of business, and the news he cares about, which foundation models and AI products get announced, will be fully covered in English-language tech press within days. He’s better off reading the coverage and watching for which tools actually ship internationally afterward than burning money on a trip that wasn’t planned with the lead time a China visa requires.

Who’s Speaking at WAIC 2026?

The headline speaker at WAIC 2026 is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is delivering the opening keynote in person for the first time since the conference launched in 2018, a shift the South China Morning Post frames as China elevating AI to the top of its national policy agenda. Premier Li Qiang, who opened the conference in 2024 and 2025, is expected to remain involved in the program.

Beyond the political keynote, the 2026 edition introduces WAIC Academic, a dedicated high-level academic track chaired by Andrew Yao, the Turing Award laureate at Tsinghua University. Confirmed academic speakers include Richard Sutton (2024 Turing Award recipient), Yoshua Bengio (2018 Turing Award co-recipient), and Thomas Sargent (2011 Nobel Prize laureate in economics), alongside Nicholas B. Dirks, President of the New York Academy of Sciences.

The opening ceremony’s academic lineup also includes several Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering figures: You He, Dianzhong Huang, Dacheng Tao (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science), Jian Chen, Xuanjing Huang of Fudan University, and Lizhuang Ma of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. That’s a genuinely international academic bench for what started as a primarily domestic Chinese event, and it’s a clear signal that WAIC wants Western AI research credibility alongside its industrial and political weight.

What’s on the WAIC 2026 Agenda?

WAIC 2026’s program covers compute infrastructure, large-model development, power-compute coordination, AI for Science, autonomous agents, autonomous driving, robotics, and creative-industry applications, organized loosely around four pillars: foundations, journeys, boundaries, and ecosystems. The agenda spans six major event types: forum meetings, exhibitions, award competitions, application experiences, innovation incubation, and talent recruitment.

The two headline tracks are intelligent computing and embodied intelligence, each backed by more than 200 participating enterprises. On the exhibition floor, that translates into 108 chips, 261 foundation models, and 208 embodied-intelligence terminals on display, alongside 300-plus working robots and machines. If you’ve followed how much of the AI hardware conversation has shifted toward chips and physical robotics over the past year, that split tells you where China is putting its industrial weight.

Running alongside the main program is the high-level meeting on global AI governance, where the National Development and Reform Commission is set to release a success-case collection covering 20-plus countries and an eight-area AI governance action plan, according to CGTN’s reporting. For anyone tracking how AI regulation is likely to diverge or align between China and Western markets over the next year, that governance track is arguably more consequential than the product exhibits.

Registration and Ticket Pricing

Ticket sales for WAIC 2026 opened in early July through the official Hi WAIC conference app, with access covering the three main venue areas: Expo, Zhangjiang, and West Bund. I want to be straightforward about a gap here: specific general-public and professional-visitor pricing for the main WAIC exhibition and forums isn’t clearly published in English-language sources as of this writing, which is unusual for a conference this size and worth flagging rather than guessing at.

What is published is pricing for the co-located WAIC Academic track, which is a separate academic conference running alongside the main event: General Representative passes are listed at ¥4,000 (roughly $555), Student passes at ¥2,000 (roughly $280), and Workshop passes at ¥2,500 (roughly $350), based on the WAIC Academic registration page. Don’t confuse this academic-track pricing with general WAIC admission. They are different registration systems.

If you’re trying to register at this point, two days out, your realistic options are downloading the Hi WAIC app to check current availability, or confirming with the official WAIC site directly whether same-week registration is even open for international visitors. Given China’s visa lead times, most readers outside China who don’t already have travel booked should plan to follow this event through press coverage rather than in person this year.

Is WAIC 2026 Worth Following? My Honest Take

For AI researchers, policy watchers, hardware and robotics teams, and anyone doing business in or with China’s AI sector, WAIC 2026 is genuinely worth close attention, mainly because of what it signals rather than what you’d personally experience on the show floor. Xi Jinping’s first in-person keynote, a dedicated Turing and Nobel laureate academic track, and a formal AI governance action plan being released at the same event is a combination no Western AI conference is currently matching in scale or political weight.

The honest caveat is fit, not quality. If you’re an independent marketer, SEO, or small SaaS founder, this isn’t your conference, and it wasn’t designed to be. There are no practitioner workshops, no masterclass tracks, and the ticket pricing that is published applies to a separate academic sub-conference, not general admission. Attending in person on short notice also runs into a hard wall: China visa timelines, not conference logistics, are the real blocker.

Here’s my buy-or-skip framing, the same one I apply to AI tool deals I cover on this site. Follow the press coverage closely if you work in AI policy, hardware, or China market strategy, since the governance action plan and product debuts will shape conversations for months. Skip trying to attend in person this year if you don’t already have travel booked, and instead watch for which of the 300-plus debuting products actually launch internationally, since that’s the signal that will matter to most AI tool buyers reading this.

Frequently Asked Questions

When and where is WAIC 2026?

WAIC 2026 runs July 17-20, 2026, across three Shanghai venue clusters: the Expo Centre and Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, Zhangjiang Science Hall, and the West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center.

Is Xi Jinping really attending WAIC 2026?

Yes. Multiple outlets, including the South China Morning Post, confirm Chinese President Xi Jinping is delivering the opening keynote in person, his first in-person appearance at WAIC since it launched in 2018.

How much do WAIC 2026 tickets cost?

General WAIC ticket pricing isn’t clearly published in English as of this writing; access runs through the Hi WAIC app. The separate, co-located WAIC Academic track lists General passes at roughly ¥4,000, Student passes at roughly ¥2,000, and Workshop passes at roughly ¥2,500.

Can I still register for WAIC 2026 this close to the event?

Ticket sales opened in early July through the Hi WAIC app and the official site, but international attendees without a China visa already secured should not expect to attend in person on two days’ notice. Check the Hi WAIC app or official site directly for same-week availability.

Who is speaking at WAIC 2026?

Xi Jinping delivers the opening keynote. The new WAIC Academic track, chaired by Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao, features Richard Sutton, Yoshua Bengio, and Thomas Sargent, alongside academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering.

Is WAIC 2026 relevant to Western AI tool buyers and founders?

Indirectly, yes. It’s not a practitioner conference for marketers or SaaS founders, but the AI governance action plan and the 300-plus globally debuting products are worth tracking for anyone watching where AI regulation and competition are heading.

The Bottom Line

WAIC 2026 is doing something no Western AI conference is doing right now: combining a head-of-state keynote, a Turing and Nobel laureate academic track, and a formal government AI governance rollout in a single four-day event. That combination, more than the exhibition floor’s genuinely impressive scale, is why this year’s edition is getting international coverage past the usual China-tech press circuit.

The insight worth taking with you: don’t let a two-day-notice headline push you into a trip that doesn’t make sense. The China visa timeline alone rules out most last-minute onsite attendance, and the real value for readers outside China is in the governance action plan and product debuts, both of which will be covered in detail by English-language press within days of the event closing.

Your concrete next step for WAIC 2026: check the official WAIC site or the Hi WAIC app if you have travel already arranged, and otherwise follow the coverage as it lands. While you’re tracking what comes out of Shanghai this week, I keep a running list of AI tools I’ve actually tested so you can compare any new product debuts against what’s already proven to work, and you can subscribe for AI deal and event alerts if you want the next conference breakdown like this one before it becomes a scramble.