The US technology media Tech Times recently published an article stating that China is becoming a testing ground for observing the AI new economy.

The 2026 Inclusion · Bund Conference will be held in Shanghai from September 9th to 12th. Around the theme of "co creating AI new economy", the conference presents a clear trend that AI is stepping out of the dialogue box and entering more specific production and life scenarios: robots are starting to work in pharmacies, factories, and laundry rooms, intelligent agents can order coffee, pay parking fees, and arrange travel for people, and AI is also entering rural clinics, street side shops, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Tech Times pointed out that they reflect an important change in China's AI industry: from pursuing novel experiences of generative AI to broader economic integration.

Macroeconomic data confirms this transformation. In the first half of 2026, the revenue of China's digital industry reached RMB 20.71 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%, and the profit increased by 19.3%. At the same time, as of June this year, the daily average usage of keywords and tones in China has exceeded 500 trillion yuan.

A recent report on the website of the Spanish newspaper "Rational" pointed out that China's AI development model is more endogenous growth oriented. According to the report, China aims to lead the global AI industry, with a development strategy centered on continuous implementation and large-scale popularization, with a focus on promoting domestic development and relying on AI to serve its own development needs.

Nobel laureate Philip Agion gave a positive evaluation of China's cutting-edge innovation at the Bund Conference. He pointed out that China has shown outstanding performance in indicators such as the proportion of high-tech patents.

Tech Times believes that China possesses cutting-edge technological capabilities, a vast digital consumer market, a mature mobile payment system, and a complete manufacturing supply chain. AI does not need to build economic networks from scratch, but can directly enter existing commercial and industrial systems. This also provides a unique growth soil for the AI new economy.

Shanghai is also an important window to observe this transformation. As one of the three leading industries in Shanghai, artificial intelligence is moving from technology and enterprise aggregation to industrialization and large-scale application. By 2025, the scale of Shanghai's artificial intelligence industry will approach 640 billion yuan, with 394 large-scale enterprises; In the first half of this year, the output value of Shanghai's artificial intelligence manufacturing industry increased by 21.8% year-on-year, further accelerating from the 19.2% growth rate in the first quarter.

Behind these numbers, a change is becoming clear: Shanghai's development of AI is no longer just about "gathering AI companies in Shanghai", but further enabling AI to form industries, enter applications, and transform into new economic increments.

During this year's Bund Conference, the "AI New Economy" was widely discussed. Liu Yuanchun, President of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, judged that "the new form of AI economy has been established, but AI economics has not really begun yet. ”He pointed out that to judge whether AI is a foam, we should return to a simple question: whether the computing power, models and infrastructure formed today can precipitate into real production capacity.

The Tech Times article concludes that it may be premature to describe China's AI exploration as a mature 'AI new economy'. A more accurate assessment is that a grand and large-scale test is underway: China is testing whether AI can become an inclusive force that spreads productivity benefits to a wider range of businesses and ordinary people.