For the first time, Hangzhou's six leading tech startups, collectively known as the "Six Little Dragons", shared one stage in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. As the six young tech executives took their seats, the crowd leaned forward.

Rise: Six Little Dragons take the stage

Before them lay more than a discussion; it was a mirror of China's evolving innovation landscape. From humanoid robots to game, from brain-computer interfaces to large language models, the focus of these startups represent the emerging directions of China's tech innovation.

Ten years ago, China's internet giants propelled the country's digital rise. Ten years on, attention is turning to China's tech firms.

But this time, it's for the startups' frontier technology.

Today, a different generation is emerging: smaller, faster, and born in an era when global AI competition defines national ambition.

"Moving from the internet era to the age of artificial intelligence is not only a global technological tide, but also a reflection of China's own digital evolution," Huang Xiaohuang, co-founder of Manycore Tech, said.

Root: Where innovation grows

The "Six Little Dragons" refers to a group of rapidly-rising tech start-ups in Hangzhou — Game Science, DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo, and Manycore Tech.

Feng Ji, a former Tencent game producer, founded a small studio called Game Science to focus on creating single-player games. He noted that China already had a large potential user base for PC and single-player games on Steam, the world's largest gaming platform in 2016.

Beside China's large user base, the founders also spoke about how they caught the wave of the country's growing opportunities for innovation.

Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, said China has a great business environment to support startups. Wang, whose company's humanoid robot became a hit at this year's Spring Festival Gala, said Hangzhou's vibrant innovation ecosystem has given young entrepreneurs the chance to leverage their passion and potential, to realize more of their dreams and to make contributions to society.

Han Bicheng, BrainCo's founder, shared similar views with Wang.

"We found that the research and development of our products in the US was progressing slowly, so in 2018 we decided to move our headquarters back to Hangzhou," Han said. "The company has grown rapidly since then."

Roadmap: Next chapter of China's innovation

What these founders described reflects a changing environment that makes innovation possible in China.

As Steve Hoffman, angel investor and CEO of start-up accelerator Founders Space, observed, China's current startup and innovation environment is a high-octane, relentlessly competitive ecosystem that is transitioning from a focus on "copy-to-China" consumer models to becoming a world leader in hard-tech and deep-tech innovation.

A similar view was echoed by PwC, which noted that China's successful intelligent transformation of the entire industrial chain has positioned the country as a leading provider of digital solutions across all industrial sectors. With new infrastructure, from 5G and data centers to the industrial internet, the digital dividends are now shared across enterprises of all sizes, enhancing efficiency and supply resilience, according to a report released this year.

In the recently-released recommendations on the 15th Five-Year Plan that will guide the country's development over the next five years, policy-makers called for progressive plans to foster industries of the future, including brain-computer interfaces and embodied AI, while nurturing unicorn companies.

Startups like the "Six Little Dragons" stand at the intersection of these priorities.

Future: What is the positioning of AI?

Han Bicheng said his company is bringing brain-computer interface technology out of the lab and into daily life, helping people with disabilities control limbs with their minds, and enabling the visually impaired to "see" beyond the limits of human sight.

"Whether robotic dogs or humanoid robots, the aim is the same: to build machines that can stand in for humans where conditions are too dangerous, demanding or dull," Zhu Qiuguo, founder and CEO of DEEP Robotics, said.

In the long run, Chen Deli, DeepSeek senior researcher, said, tech firms should see themselves as guardians of humanity, protecting human safety and helping to reshape the social order in the age of AI.

Ma Mengmeng contributed to this story.

From digital crop estimation to e-commerce for global markets, China's digital development is transforming lives worldwide. Hear how international experts view China's digital innovation and its impact on the world.

The 2025 'Straight to Wuzhen' Global Internet Competition award ceremony was held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province on Sunday. The competition received a total of 1,082 entries from 29 countries and regions across its six main tracks. Among the participating companies, E3A Healthcare presented their innovative medical products that aid in jaundice testing and fetal monitoring.

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries and daily life at remarkable speed, its future will depend as much on responsible governance as on technological progress, said experts and business leaders.

"AI has become an irreversible trend of our time, profoundly changing the way we produce, live and govern," said Wu Dong, chief engineer of the Cyberspace Administration of China, at a parallel forum on frontier AI models during the 2025 World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

Wu said China will continue to prioritize AI development in its 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) by focusing on fundamental research and breakthroughs in key technologies, promoting industrial growth and expanding real-world application scenarios.

Innovation, he added, must advance hand-in-hand with responsibility, supported by sound governance, reliable data quality and professional expertise.

AI safety has become a central topic as technology moves from the virtual world into real-world applications. Lu Wei, vice-chairman of the Cyber Security Association of China, described AI security as the lifeline of development.

"As AI expands from the digital world into the physical world, its risks are becoming more complex. We face not only technical vulnerabilities, but also ethical, privacy and systemic risks."

Lu cited the AI Safety Governance Framework 2.0, China's latest policy upgrade, as a sign of a shift from reactive regulation to proactive governance. Released in September, the framework highlights transparency, data protection and a collaborative governance model that spans borders, fields and industries.

"High-level security does not constrain innovation — it safeguards it," Lu said. "Only by embedding safety into every layer of the AI ecosystem can we ensure sustainable, high-quality development."

Undoubtedly, AI is already reshaping productivity and creativity across sectors. A joint report by the Yinxiang Biji Research Institute and the WIC Think Tank found that integrating AI models into real-world applications has become a growing global consensus.

"In manufacturing, AI-driven optimization has improved efficiency by 12 percent; in pharmaceuticals, it has halved new drug development cycles; and in education, AI large-model interaction is redefining personalized learning," said Qiao Qian, director of Yinxiang Biji Research Institute and vice-president of Yinxiang Biji.

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in critical systems, cybersecurity specialists warn of emerging vulnerabilities. Hu Zhenquan, president of Chinese cybersecurity company 360 Digital Security Group, said AI security represents the next frontier of the digital economy.

"Everything can be programmed, imitated, generated and orchestrated — and that's both AI's power and its weakness," Hu said. He proposed an "AI + Security "dual strategy that uses AI to safeguard AI systems.

Beyond technology, experts emphasized the importance of shared governance and global collaboration in shaping a sustainable AI future.

"Digital transformation is irreversible — like biological evolution," said Gerald Vernez, founder and director of the digiVolution Foundation and former Swiss cyber defense representative. "The real issue is not the tools themselves, but how we use them."

Vernez stressed that "strategy must precede technology" and urged nations to strengthen "digital sovereignty built on trust, resilience and cooperation".

As large models proliferate, infrastructure resilience is becoming a new priority. Hou Shengli, chief technology officer of Cisco Greater China, said full-lifecycle governance — from vulnerability detection to data integrity — should form the backbone of AI infrastructure.

"Future systems will evolve across three dimensions — within servers, within data centers and between data centers — all supported by secure, high-speed networks," Hou said.

lijing2009@chinadaily.com.cn

The 2025 Global Internet Competition of "Straight to Wuzhen" award ceremony was held in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang province on Sunday.

Six grand prizes, six first prizes, 18 second prizes and 30 third prizes were awarded out of the 71 projects in the finals, according to the official WeChat account of the World Internet Conference. This year's competition collected 1,082 entries from 29 countries and regions around the world.

The open source projects for individuals attracted 632 developers, with eight recipients given the most valuable contributor award.

As a signature event of the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, the Global Internet Competition of "Straight to Wuzhen" is in its 7th year. Over the previous six editions, a total of 252 projects have stood out.

The event this year featured six key tracks — artificial intelligence, intelligent connected mobility, intelligent digital healthcare, intelligent manufacturing, smart terminal, and open source projects.

Wang Jingtao, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Ren Xianliang, secretary-general of the World Internet Conference, and Zhao Cheng, head of the publicity department of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China attended the event and presented trophies and certificates of merit to representatives of the winning projects.

Senior Chinese officials on cyberspace and law on Sunday called for precisely setting legal "red lines and high lines", along with ethics guidelines and technical standards, to ensure artificial intelligence develops in a safe, reliable, and controllable direction.

They made the remarks at a sub-forum on law-based cyberspace governance during the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

Li Mingzheng, vice-minister of justice, said AI — "a strategic technology driving a new round of scientific and industrial transformation" — has brought both opportunities and risks.

"AI technology cannot deviate from the direction of human civilizational progress," Li said, adding that development and security must be advanced in a coordinated way.

"While promoting continuous innovation and breakthroughs, we must proactively guard against and address potential risks, ensuring AI develops in a safe, reliable, and controllable manner," he said.

He added that China will "grasp the trends and patterns of AI development, precisely set legal red lines and high lines, and give full play to the safeguarding role of the rule of law."

AI governance, Li noted, is a complex systems project that requires the participation of government, industry, academia, research institutions, and the public.

Yang Jianwen, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said AI is profoundly reshaping production and daily life, driving revolutionary advances in productivity and deep structural change.

At the same time, he cautioned, new technical risks such as data security gaps, algorithmic bias, and deepfakes have emerged, extending into social, ethical, and legal challenges.

To meet these challenges, Yang called for continuously improving the legal and policy framework for AI, refining ethics guidelines for research, development, and application, and accelerating the formulation of technical standards in key fields.

He also urged stronger enforcement against illegal or abusive uses of AI, improving law-enforcement measures suited to AI's development and governance, fully leveraging industry self-discipline, and building a multi-stakeholder, collaborative governance system.

The officials said China will continue to promote an ecosystem in which innovation is encouraged and risks are effectively managed, so that AI can better serve economic development, social governance, and people's well-being.

According to the WHO, 15 percent of the global population lives with disabilities — a staggering figure. However, a new generation of innovators is striving to break down barriers for these people through technology. At the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, China Daily reporter Yan An met two young entrepreneurs making significant strides in this area. Giannina Honorio Heredia from Peru highlighted that sign language is not just a means of communication but also a cultural expression, which inspired her to develop a translation app for people with hearing impairment. João Pedro Novochadlo from Brazil, who has previously helped visually impaired individuals enjoy music festivals through his app, noted that if we turn a blind eye to these issues, we might question who the real "blind" ones are.

Dejan Jakovljevic, chief information officer of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said China has made "enormous progress" in agriculture and agricultural digitalization during the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit. Watch the video to learn more.

At the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, Besik Bugianishvili, CEO of the JSC Development Fund of Georgia (DFG), argued that the most profound application of AI is in actively engineering peace.

At the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, Besik Bugianishvili, CEO of the JSC Development Fund of Georgia (DFG), described his vision of a world where the best models are applied to shared challenges.

The globally sensational "designer" toy Labubu has topped China's most internationally influential online pop-culture intellectual property in the past year, with blockbuster film Ne Zha 2 close behind, according to a report released on Saturday.

The report, focused on the international communication of Chinese symbols, was unveiled by a Beijing-based think tank Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies at the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. It offers a data-driven assessment of how Chinese cultural IPs and local cultural symbols spread overseas over the past year.

According to the ranking, Labubu, the collectible "designer" toy sold by Beijing-based toy-maker Pop Mart, led the top 10 Chinese online pop-culture IPs. A blockbuster film, Dead To Rights, came second, and Ne Zha 2 third.

Other entries in the top 10 include the breakout film Nobody, ranking 7th, and the Chinese game Where Winds Meet, 9th.

The film Dead To Rights is set against the backdrop of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), telling the story of a group of civilians who took refuge in a photo studio amid wartime chaos and risked their lives to expose the atrocities committed by the invading Japanese army.

Ne Zha 2 reimagined the classic myth, telling the story of the Chinese mythological character Ne Zha and his family and friends as they overcome hardship and stand up to hostile powers.

Releasing the findings, Li Yafang, head of the academy, said those globally resonant Chinese IPs "no longer aim to preach, but use high-quality products and compelling stories" to make the world actively understand China.

The report tracked the performance of Chinese cultural symbols across more than 4,000 mainstream media outlets worldwide, multiple international social platforms and search engines, as well as how they are referenced by leading artificial intelligence models such as DeepSeek and ChatGPT, based on data from November 2024 to September 2025, the think tank said.

Christopher Millward, president and managing director of the United States Information Technology Office, a trade association representing the US information communication technologies industry in China, said there is a lot of alignment between China and the US in AI governance. He made the remarks at the Frontier AI Models Forum, a sub-forum of the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit on Nov 8.

Watch the video to hear more of his insights!

On Nov 9, Maaz Gardezi, Founder of the Living Lab of Virginia Tech University, said at the Digital Agriculture Forum of the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that AI should enable a better quality of life and make human judgment thrives.

On Nov 9, Dejan Jakovljevic, CIO and Director, Digital FAO and Agroinformatics Division of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said at the Digital Agriculture Forum of the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that FAO is looking forward to collaborating with China in facilitating the sharing of knowledge, technology and innovation.

Jun Murai, a professor at Keio University in Japan, was honored with the Distinguished Contribution Award at the 2025 World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit. This award recognizes his pioneering achievements and lifelong dedication to the development of the global internet.

In a video message, Murai expressed his deep gratitude for the recognition, emphasizing that the honor belongs not only to him but also to the many colleagues and collaborators who have shaped the evolution of the internet. Reflecting on his early research in distributed computing system in the late 1970s and his collaboration with Chinese scholars in the 1980s, Murai highlighted the shared history that has helped shape today's digital world.

He lauded the WIC as a vital bridge connecting East and West, past and future, and noted that the internet has become essential infrastructure for a new era-driving artificial intelligence and innovation across sectors.

Murai called for collective global efforts to innovate, secure, and sustain the new internet, highlighting the Asia-Pacific region's dynamic role as a powerful engine for future digital development.

Lacina Koné, director-general and CEO of Smart Africa, has been honored with the 2025 World Internet Conference (WIC) Distinguished Contribution Award.

As a leading advocate for Africa's digital transformation, Koné has played a central role in promoting the vision of Smart Africa—to build a single, inclusive and sovereign digital market across the continent. He has worked to strengthen digital public infrastructure, harmonize data governance and empower local innovation through policy and smart investment.

Koné said the award represents a shared commitment to collaboration and innovation, reminding the world that "when we connect, collaborate and co-create, we can shape a digital future that leaves no one behind."

He also recognized the WIC as an important platform linking regional champions with global partners to advance cooperation in innovation, regulation and AI ethics.

Werner Zorn, widely considered "the Father of the Internet in Germany", has been honored with the 2025 World Internet Conference (WIC) Distinguished Contribution Award.

As a pioneer who has witnessed and participated in the transformative journey of the internet in China, Zorn has stood at the forefront of technological evolution, observing the growth of an industry that has become a cornerstone of modern life. He said he was fortunate to experience "a boom of modern Chinese e-commerce, which is almost breathtaking, for its speed of development, and a wide range of reach in areas like retail and full-stack logistics."

He also praised the WIC for serving as a platform that promotes the continued development of internet technology and its benefits for daily life. He expressed confidence that the WIC will continue to play an essential role in fulfilling its mission — that is: using the internet to make life better for everyone.

US computer scientist Robert Kahn, co-inventor of the TCP/IP foundation protocol of the internet and widely regarded as the father of the internet, was honored at the 2025 World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit.

He received the WIC Distinguished Contribution Award for his groundbreaking contributions and lifelong efforts in shaping the modern internet.

In a video message to the award ceremony, Kahn expressed his deep gratitude to the WIC and shared reflections on the internet's evolution. He recounted his groundbreaking work and emphasized that collaboration across borders remains vital.

"The internet could not have succeeded to the extent that it has without the help and encouragement of so many others in industry, academia and government around the world," he said, indicating that cooperation is essential to the development of the global internet.

AI can provide customized advice for farmers, enabling users to seek agricultural knowhow through chat interfaces on mobile application about "how to change and apply fertilizer according to the conditions at that point of time," said Parmesh Shah, the global lead of Data-driven Digital Agriculture of World Bank during the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit.

Dai Yan contributed to the video.