Over 1,000 companies in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics participated in a technology expo at the World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Shanghai. Despite the nominally global nature of the expo, the majority of exhibitors were Chinese.
Major chip manufacturers were represented, including Alibaba, Huawei, Kunlunxin, Moore Threads, Hygon and other industry leaders. At the expo, Alibaba introduced the Zhenwu M890 chip, paired with the Panjiu AL128 super server. The Zhenwu M890 is a new generation of AI chips from Pingtou, a subsidiary of Alibaba. It is used for both AI training and task execution.
“This is our flagship chip, with an inter-chip throughput of up to 800 GB/s, and its performance is three times higher than that of Zhenwu 810E, our previous-generation chip“, said a developer representative. The Panjiu AL128 server is a cabinet with 128 Zhenwu M890 microprocessors. The server is already being used to train advanced Chinese AI models Qwen, DeepSeek, and Kimi. “The competition in the AI chip space is currently very intense. It's like a hundred blooming flowers and a hundred schools of thought competing in China's technology sector. "Chinese companies are competing not only with each other but also with global industry leaders," an Alibaba representative noted.
Huawei unveiled the Atlas 950 SuperPoD superserver at the exhibition, which is said to be the world's largest. It is equipped with 1,024 Huawei Ascend chips, with terabyte-class neural processing unit (NPU) throughput and ultra-low latency of 3 μs.
AI developer Zhipu AI demonstrated its flagship large-scale open-source language model, GLM-5.2, which boasts performance comparable to the world's leading models. As a company representative explained at the booth, the highly competitive environment of dozens of developers is a driving force for the rapid development of the AI industry. “When a Chinese company releases an update to its flagship model, its leadership in the ranking can last from a few weeks to a few days, as another company soon releases its flagship model, surpassing its competitors in certain parameters“, explained a reporter at the booth.
Production of 100,000 robots per year
Part of the exhibition is dedicated to robotics based on artificial intelligence, and here too, fierce competition is evident, pushing developers to innovate. Dozens of Chinese companies presented their industrial and humanoid robots, as well as robotic manipulators. Concept models of robots were also exhibited, including the three-meter-tall piloted Unitree GD01 robot equipped with a human-sized cabin, and the DaxAI robotic horse with a payload of 300 kg.
A distinctive feature of the exhibition were prototypes of robots that help with housework. These robots can recognize objects, search for them in confined spaces, grab them with their hands, and carry them to the desired location. However, they perform such tasks at extremely slow speeds. For example, a robot standing near a sofa takes about a minute to pick up a child's toy and place it in a box a meter away.
A representative of SpiritAI explained that robots are currently learning to perform housework in a laboratory setting, but significant progress and experimental application in a number of housework scenarios can be expected within five years. According to him, competition is a driving force for the development of the industry, but developers face high costs against the backdrop of uncertain prospects for the use of humanoid robots and their demand.
According to the plan of the Chinese authorities, the production volume of humanoid robots in China will reach 100,000 units by 2025.