The 20th Hangzhou Cultural Expo opens with nearly 6,000 cultural and creative brands competing on the same stage

China News Service, Hangzhou, November 5 (Lin Bo, Cao Dan) The 20th Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Industry Expo (hereinafter referred to as "Hangzhou Cultural Expo") opened in Hangzhou on the 5th.

At the opening ceremony, the list of large generative artificial intelligence models in Hangzhou's cultural and creative field, version 1.0 of Hangzhou's cultural OPC community map, and the 2027 "New Hangzhou Line" Hangzhou cultural and creative global tour plan were officially released. The Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Investment Guidance Fund’s new round of cooperation sub-funds were signed simultaneously, with a total scale of 5.7 billion yuan (RMB, the same below).

With the theme of "Creative Hangzhou Connecting the World", this year's CIIE has set up five themed pavilions focusing on the three major directions of the "three new things" of culture (online articles, online dramas, and online games), the integration of culture and technology, and the integration of culture and consumption, bringing together exhibitors from more than 40 countries and regions and nearly 6,000 cultural and creative brands at home and abroad.

On November 5, tourists listened to robots playing music at the Hangzhou International Cultural Expo. Photo by Lin Bo

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Hangzhou Cultural Expo. Data show that in 2025, the added value of Hangzhou's cultural industry will reach 363.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%; in the first half of 2026, Hangzhou's cultural enterprises above designated size achieved operating income of 618.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.12%.

This Hangzhou Cultural Expo has specially set up the "Twenty Years of Creativity" exhibition area to review the development history of Hangzhou's cultural industry through dynamic images, interactive installations and other forms. At the same time, "chains" create everything - Hangzhou Culture's "Three New" Industry Panoramic Exhibition Area displays the industrial chain of online literature, online film and television, and online games from content creation, audio-visual transformation to digital experience and global communication, allowing the audience to understand how cultural IP moves from creativity to market.

On November 5, tourists experienced the "Cave Hunting XUNKU" exhibition at the Hangzhou Cultural Expo. Photo by Lin Bo

"Culture + Technology" is a major highlight of the Hangzhou International Cultural Expo. The Zhejiang University exhibition area brought "robot legions" such as the "Hexuan" robot band, and digitally presented the "Chinese Silk Art Department" and Wu Yueguo silk and clothing research results. The "Cave Hunting XUNKU" exhibition area of ​​the China Academy of Art brings the thousand-year-old grottoes together with AI, and "Shan Hai Song" digitally restores the West Lake of the Southern Song Dynasty for the first time.

In addition, this Hangzhou Cultural Expo also set up an OPC cultural, creative and intelligent manufacturing exhibition area for the first time, focusing on presenting innovative results in the fields of AI content creation, intelligent agent development and digital creation, and demonstrating new models of artificial intelligence empowering the design and production of cultural and creative products.