This year’s World AI Conference (WAIC 2025) was hotter than ever, not just because of the 32°C heat in Shanghai, but because of the excitement within the industry during the 3-day conference in China between 26 and 28 July. Not only did Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton deliver a speech and Chinese Premier Li Qiang attend, but tickets to the event soared to over 2,000 RMB (279.56 USD) on the resale market, up from the original 168 RMB (23.48 USD). The biggest draw this year? Robots and applications of large language models (LLMs).
AI-equipped robots, or embodied AIs, were one of the main highlights at this year’s conference. Over 150 robots (more than 90 of them with embodied AI) made an appearance, up from just 18 last year. Pundits found that there were two main ways manufacturers exhibited their designs: by showcasing the “brain” or the “muscle”. Unitree went all the way with muscle by hosting boxing matches for its G1 robots against human and robot opponents. Other robots performed tasks from the home to the office to factories, including ice cream making, playing drums and operating other machines.
Meanwhile, in the LLM field, application and ecosystem were two key concepts this year. From AI hardware such as Alibaba’s Quark AI glasses and Tencent’s “family bucket” tool suite, to Yuanbao’s video call feature and image generation. Baidu brought its next-generation digital human technology, NOVA, the tech behind Luo Yonghao’s viral livestream during the 618 Shopping Festival.
Other highlights include level 3 and 4 driving assistance from Geely and other makers, including Baidu, as well as Huawei’s super server. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “WAIC 2025” gained 35.08 million views, ranking number 32 on the Society list. There were also other Hot Search-worthy topics, such as one about boxing robots and another about robot food delivery. AI, especially embodied AI, seems to be the most closely watched part of this conference for both industry and the public. So, we will continue to watch this space, especially how the tech will be monetised.