People's Daily reporter He Cong Jiang Nan Dou Hao
Evolving from "capable of chatting" to "capable of working and delivering", office robots have truly become "good assistants"; able to command with their eyes and voice, smart glasses have become "good helpers" for high-voltage line inspection workers; by learning and mastering professional pressing techniques and strength, robots can work as "physiotherapists". In early November, at the 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit held in Wuzhen, Tongxiang, Zhejiang, a number of new artificial intelligence technologies and products were unveiled.
Since the Wuzhen Summit of the World Internet Conference was held, Wuzhen has gradually developed into a cultural and smart town, and the number of digital economy enterprises has increased from 12 to more than 1,200. Through the window of Wuzhen, we can see the surging vitality and solid pace of innovation in "Zhejiang". In recent years, Zhejiang has continued to consolidate the foundation of the digital economy, promote artificial intelligence technological innovation, application empowerment, and industrial development, accelerate the creation of a highland for artificial intelligence innovation and development, and build a virtuous cycle system of "data-model-scenario application".
Open source and openness create a vibrant innovation ecosystem
"Only when scientific researchers lift their heads from heavy calculations can they devote more energy to the unknown." said Zhang Shuhan, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Earth Sciences and Engineering at Nanjing University. In the past, it took more than 10 years for an ordinary desktop computer to calculate the evolutionary sequence of 10,000 fossil species; now, the large stratigraphic artificial intelligence model developed by Zhang Shuhan and his team in cooperation with Yujiang Laboratory can process the data of 100,000 species in just a few days.
From "calculating faster" to "using it better", open source is constantly lowering the threshold for innovation.
In the open source themed ecological experience hall in Wuzhen, people were coming and going in front of the "Magic Community" booth. At present, the Moda community has attracted 33 million users from more than 200 countries and regions around the world, bringing together more than 280,000 open source models, providing model download, tuning, training and other services.
Gather resources online and collide with creativity offline. In the offline developer center of Moda Community in Xihu District, Hangzhou, long tables are lined up and codes are running. OPC (one-person company) entrepreneurs can realize their creative ideas at their fingertips from adjusting a model to launching a product.
Looking through the "window" of Wuzhen, innovation momentum is surging in "Zhejiang"——
In Tongxiang, there are seven artificial intelligence companies scattered along the 28-kilometer Wuzhen Avenue, covering computing power, data, applications and other aspects. Looking at Zhejiang, Qianwen and Deep Search large models continue to iterate, and their comprehensive performance ranks first in the global open source model echelon.
Continue to consolidate the foundation and improve the innovation ecology in "Zhejiang"——
The National Supercomputing Center’s “Light of Wuzhen” can complete 18 petaflops of floating-point operations in one second, and has deployed thousands of supercomputing applications and more than a hundred mainstream large models. As of the end of September this year, Zhejiang's total computing power scale ranks among the top in the country, and 54 companies (institutions) have received national computing power coupon support, with a total support scale of 408 million yuan.
The "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of the Open Source System in Zhejiang Province" released this year clearly states that by 2027, Zhejiang will build 1 to 2 open source communities with global influence, form more than 50 high-quality open source projects, and cultivate more than 150 open source innovative enterprises.
Technology empowerment is not only a technical means but also a driving force for industrial change.
Drive more than 20 kilometers from the Wuzhen venue to Puyuan Town, Tongxiang. As a sweater distribution center, Puyuan Town’s sweater industry transaction volume will reach 139.3 billion yuan in 2025.
In the past, sweater quality inspection relied on manual light inspection for a long time, and holes and threads in complex textures were easily missed. The fabric defect identification system developed by the Tongxiang Research Institute of Zhejiang University of Communication has been trained on tens of thousands of sweater defect cases and can identify holes, threads, weaving defects and other defects.
Changes not only occur on the production line, but also extend to the front end of the market.
In the Puyuan Fashion Center, there is an endless stream of buyers in front of the artificial intelligence fitting mirror with nearly 200 merchants selling goods. By lightly swiping the mirror, you can select the version, color and fabric, preview the 360-degree virtual upper body effect in real time, design the style and pattern yourself, and send customization requirements directly to the cooperative factory. "Buyers don't have to try on items one by one, which reduces our risk of inventory backlog." Business owner Jiang Lei said.
The reach of artificial intelligence continues to extend to the production line. Walking into the digital intelligence operation center of Tongkun Group in Zhouquan Town, Tongxiang, information such as equipment operation and production progress jumped in real time on the large screen. "Tongkun Brain" connects 28,000 devices and embeds artificial intelligence in quality inspection, logistics scheduling and other links.
Relying on the resource agglomeration effect of the Wuzhen Summit, the total number of national high-tech enterprises and provincial science and technology small and medium-sized enterprises in Tongxiang increased by 10 times and 8 times respectively compared with 2014. In the first eight months of this year, Tongxiang's core artificial intelligence industry achieved revenue of nearly 10 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%.
In accordance with the "one county, one industry, one plan" to promote 17 provincial pilot projects, Zhejiang has promoted artificial intelligence-enabled transformation in Xiaoshan chemical fiber, Yueqing electrical and other industries according to local conditions, and has created 137 special models and characteristic intelligent entities, and 127 industry high-quality data sets. Zhejiang has created a total of 210 "artificial intelligence +" typical application scenarios, promoting the in-depth penetration of artificial intelligence from a single breakthrough to the entire industry and all scenarios.
People-oriented, technology has the warmth to better benefit the people
At noon, in the corridor of Wuzhen Intelligent Senior Care Center, a food delivery robot drove steadily past, delivering hot meals to the door of 85-year-old Grandma Ni's room.
On the streets, new colleagues are also taking up their posts. At the intersection in Puyuan Town, robot traffic police are directing traffic flow; in front of Wuzhen Bus Station, self-driving buses are picking up tourists, and information such as the signal status of the traffic light intersection is synchronized to the self-driving buses in real time.
The innovation and development of artificial intelligence must not only have the height of technological breakthroughs and the speed of industrial leaps, but also the warmth of sharing the innovation results to everyone——
In Hangzhou, tourists wearing augmented reality glasses can "see and ask questions" at the Liangzhu Museum; in Jinhua, drones pass regular aerial surveys and generate "physical examination reports" on farmland growth in half an hour; in Zhejiang Province, the medical artificial intelligence body "Anchen'er" is connected to more than 2,000 medical and health institutions, providing more than 40 services such as pre-diagnosis consultation, medical accompaniment, and report interpretation.
At present, multiple platforms such as the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Medical) and the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Cultural Tourism) have settled in Zhejiang. According to the "Zhejiang Province's "15th Five-Year Plan" Digital Economy and Digital Infrastructure Plan", by 2030, the added value of the province's digital economy will account for 60% of the regional GDP, and the revenue of the above-mentioned artificial intelligence core industry will reach 1.2 trillion yuan.
The main responsible comrades of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee said that Zhejiang is working hard to accelerate the promotion of artificial intelligence to empower thousands of industries, create a first-class innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and inject strong momentum into promoting high-quality development of cyberspace.
