China News Service, Nanning, September 23 (Reporter Huang Yanmei) The 9th China Nanning Overseas Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition 2026, the AI Empowerment Super League for Thousands of Industries, concluded on the 22nd in Nanning, Guangxi. The competition selected 6 first prizes, 10 second prizes, 14 third prizes, 20 excellence awards and 5 ASEAN Cooperation Potential Awards.
As the highest-level, most comprehensive and most influential global science and technology competition to attract talents in Nanning, this competition closely follows the construction layout of Nanning's modern industrial system, using competitions as media, gathering talents, and promoting production. It brings together global returnees, high-quality science and technology projects, and top innovation resources to Nanning to inject core momentum into the city's deepening of China-ASEAN science and technology cooperation and the cultivation and expansion of emerging industrial clusters.
This competition comprehensively upgrades the competition system, anchors the shortcomings of Nanning's key industrial chains and future industrial development directions, and accurately sets up four core tracks, covering artificial intelligence, new generation electronic information and key metal new materials, new energy, high-end equipment manufacturing and low-altitude economy, biomedicine and general health, and innovatively adding a special ASEAN artificial intelligence track.
According to the organizer of the competition, since the launch of the competition, global science and technology innovation teams have enthusiastically signed up, and a total of 824 innovative and entrepreneurial projects have been collected. 581 projects have passed the official qualification review, of which artificial intelligence-related industry projects accounted for more than 33.9%. The participating teams gather scientific research talents from the world's top universities such as Harvard University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and the University of Hong Kong. The competition has established a six-area linkage selection system of "domestic core cities + overseas key regions", covering the three major science and technology innovation highlands of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, as well as overseas science and technology core cities such as Paris, France, Singapore, and Bangkok, Thailand, achieving two-way connectivity and simultaneous selection of domestic and foreign innovation resources.
At the finals, 50 top science and technology innovation teams that stood out after layers of screening competed on the same stage and staged a high-level, high-quality, high-tech science and technology innovation feast. This final strictly followed professional review standards and adopted the competition model of "8-minute project roadshow + 7-minute on-site defense" to build a fair, just, open and transparent competition platform.
On the competition field, all kinds of cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements were on display, with numerous highlights. Among them, the artificial intelligence track project focuses on the intelligent upgrading of thousands of industries and launches highly practical solutions such as industrial AI quality inspection and embodied intelligence; the new generation electronic information, key metals and new materials track project focuses on the research and development of new materials for key metals and the manufacturing of new electronic components, helping Nanning fill the shortcomings of the high-end new materials industry chain.
Nanning City adheres to the working idea of "introducing talents through competitions, gathering intelligence through competitions, and promoting production through competitions", and deeply binds the competition with the city's talent policies and industrial support policies. Relying on the core talent policy system of the "Yongjiang Plan", Nanning City builds a full-chain service closed loop of "entry matching - landing incubation - policy support - industrial empowerment" to provide all-round and three-dimensional entrepreneurial guarantees for innovative and entrepreneurial talents at home and abroad.
It is reported that the first prize-winning projects in the competition can be directly included in the special support scope of Nanning City's "Yongjiang Plan" leading talent team, and can receive up to 5 million yuan (RMB, the same below) in special funding; the second- and third-prize projects can apply for scientific research and entrepreneurship funds of no less than 150,000 yuan. At the same time, implemented projects can enjoy a series of supporting services such as park site resources, entrepreneurial mentorship, investment and financing docking, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and talent housing guarantees, which comprehensively reduces the costs and thresholds for overseas talents to start businesses in Yong and implement projects.
In order to get through the "last mile" of the implementation of scientific and technological innovation achievements, this final will simultaneously hold an industry precision matchmaking meeting to build a "five-in-one" docking platform for talents, projects, capital, parks, and enterprises. The participating science and technology innovation teams will have face-to-face and in-depth communication with major industrial parks, key enterprises, incubation carriers, and venture capital institutions in Nanning to accurately meet the needs of industrial cooperation. (over)
