Summit fuels entrepreneurial spirit

Beijing will support universities, research institutions and enterprises in forming innovation consortia to advance original innovation and achieve breakthroughs in key core technologies, Yin Li, Party secretary of Beijing, said on the opening day of the HICOOL 2026 Global Entrepreneur Summit on Wednesday.

"We are eager to collaborate with all parties to continuously strengthen the foundations for original innovation, spur technological progress and better respond to the growing technological needs of industries," Yin said.

Beijing's ongoing "AI Plus" initiative is reinforcing the role of enterprises as the main drivers of innovation, facilitating the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, and fostering more globally competitive strategic emerging industries and future industries, he added.

The summit, being held for the seventh consecutive year, will run until Saturday. One major component of the event is the competition, which this year has attracted a record 10,209 startup projects and 13,472 entrepreneurs from 141 countries and regions. The four-day event is expected to record more than 50,000 visits.

Over the past seven years, the HICOOL ecosystem has incubated five publicly listed companies, 18 unicorns and 219 specialized and innovative enterprises. Award-winning projects have secured more than 71.9 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) in post-competition financing.

Omar Yaghi, a 2025 Nobel laureate in chemistry who joined Tsinghua University full-time in July, said: "Beijing has extraordinary scientific institutions, exceptional strengths in artificial intelligence and engineering, ambitious young talent, investors and access to world-class industrial capabilities. But perhaps most importantly, Beijing has the willingness to think and build at scale. Here, a bold idea can quickly move from 'Why should we do this?' to 'How do we make it happen?'"

He said Beijing had "the spirit required to build a new scientific system designed for the age of AI".

"We want to build such a system here in Beijing," he said. "Beijing will not simply participate in the future of scientific discovery; it will help define it."

During the event, the 2026 Global Entrepreneur Insights Report was released. Prominent venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee, who released the report, said Beijing's AI Plus initiative would create ample opportunities for one-person companies, or OPCs, particularly by facilitating their expansion into overseas markets.

Wang Guanbo, a PhD holder from Tsinghua University, said he had benefited from Beijing's increasingly supportive AI ecosystem, securing orders worth 10 million yuan over the past three months, thanks to support from the HICOOL platform and Beijing's AI initiatives.

yangcheng@chinadaily.com.cn