China News Service, Shanghai, September 11 (Gao Zhimiao) The 2026 Inclusion Bund Conference with the theme of "Creating a New AI Economy" was held in Shanghai from the 9th to the 12th. More than 40 body-worn smart manufacturers made their appearance at the conference. From "generation" to "execution", how to co-create a new economy of artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted attention from industry and academia.
In front of the Sudu Technology booth, a robot was demonstrating grasping under different conditions of items, lighting, and desktop materials. It could adapt and complete the task in real time without reconfiguring or collecting data. In an interview with China News Service, on-site staff member Jiang Xiwen said that the company's self-developed simulation platform can randomly generate millions of scenarios, allowing robots to learn to grab and place independently in a virtual environment. "We create a scalable research paradigm through the general embodied intelligence route, allowing data, computing power, simulation, models and real feedback to continue to grow and iterate, driving the continuous evolution of robots."
Xu Huazhe, founder of Shell-breaking Robot and assistant professor at Tsinghua University's Interdisciplinary Information Institute, told reporters that the core of embodied intelligence is ultimately "generalization". A general model can solve a variety of things. This is the meaning of embodied intelligence. Otherwise, it is a special device.
Xu Huazhe believes that embodied intelligence will see significant changes in capabilities this year. "We are expected to see true 'generalization' in batches, where the same model can do a series of tasks in different scenarios." He also said that it may take a long time for robots to truly enter the home, and there is still a lot of work to be done in business, ethics, and regulations.
This judgment reflects the underlying proposition of the AI new economy: technological capabilities are evolving rapidly, but value creation still needs to be followed up. "AI is undoubtedly one of the most important variables in the current economy and society." Han Xinyi, CEO of Ant Group, said that the AI economy cannot rely solely on capital investment, and AI applications cannot stop at improving efficiency. Enterprises need to move from cost reduction and efficiency improvement to value creation, using AI to create more new supplies, activate more new demands, and form a richer new smart economy format.
Source Code Capital investment partner Zhang Hongjiang gave a longer-term judgment from the perspective of technological paradigm evolution. He believes that today's generative AI technology is not only a breakthrough in the information technology (IT) industry, it is equivalent to the invention of fire and electricity in human history, and is a fault-like transition.
In Zhang Hongjiang's view, with the development of intelligent technology and capabilities, IT systems are evolving from intelligent systems to intelligent economies, which will promote the development of the entire economy. "The intelligent economy will not only bring efficiency improvements, but will also trigger deep changes in the industrial structure and corporate structure. In the past, the core asset of enterprises was people; in the future, the core competitiveness of enterprises will increasingly be reflected in computing power, model capabilities, data capabilities, and whether the data flywheel can truly turn."
While the industry is accelerating to paint a picture of the new AI economy, academic circles remind that theoretical preparations are still insufficient. Liu Yuanchun, president of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, believes that AI economics has been established, but AI economics has not really begun yet. Not only is it difficult for traditional frameworks to grasp the nature and laws of AI, it may also cause unnecessary confusion. Even economists who were previously conservative are increasingly feeling the positive impact of AI, but they do need to move forward with cautious optimism. (over)
