At China’s 2026 Two Sessions, Hisense Group chairman and National People’s Congress delegate Jia Shaoqian framed artificial intelligence as moving out of a speculative boom and into practical industrial use. He warned that the coming phase will reward firms that translate algorithms into production gains and urged Beijing to build public infrastructure to accelerate that transition.
Jia proposed two concrete public goods: a national “intelligent‑agent public service platform” and an “industrial knowledge base” that would model and monetise the tacit know‑how embedded on factory floors. By turning implicit manufacturing expertise into structured assets, Jia argued, intelligent agents could autonomously plan and execute better decisions and enable a new organisation of work in which humans, digital employees and physical robots collaborate in tandem.
The argument is strategic as well as technological. Jia portrayed AI as a rare window for Chinese firms to “overtake on a curve,” narrowing gaps with advanced economies by hardening domestic industrial capability. He stressed that the payoff will depend on tighter data governance and interoperable technical standards, and said companies should focus on real user and industrial needs rather than chasing headline experiments. As an example of tangible benefits, Jia cited a case where smart upgrades reduced a product‑development cycle by 37 percent.
On humanoid robots, Jia adopted a markedly more cautious tone. Hisense is exploring household service robots, he said, but current humanoid designs remain immature for the complexity of family life. Beyond navigation and chores, household robots will need richer emotional interaction and context awareness, capabilities Jia said will take time to mature before mass domestic adoption is feasible.
That caution extended to investment strategy. Jia urged rational, demand‑driven capital allocation and warned against herd behaviour and premature efforts to stamp out “involution” — a Chinese term for wasteful, hypercompetitive sameness. He believes robot makers should be encouraged to experiment, but that large‑scale consumer deployment will follow a slow march from industrial and niche service scenarios to broader household roles such as eldercare and childcare.
Jia’s prescriptions are notable because they map industrial policy onto emerging commercial tech: public platforms and a shared industrial knowledge base would lower barriers for mid‑sized manufacturers to deploy AI and robotics. If implemented, the approach would accelerate adoption domestically, raise the bar for interoperability, and create new vectors for government guidance over sensitive data and standards.
The strategy also brings trade‑offs. State‑led platforms can speed national coordination but risk entrenching dominant players, creating vendor lock‑in and crowding out smaller innovators. Local governments’ appetite to cultivate headline industries could still produce distorted subsidies and misallocated capital, particularly if enthusiasm for humanoids outpaces technical reality.
Jia closed on an optimistic, pragmatic note, saying 2026 could be a pivotal year for China’s economic development if technology is marshalled to serve people and industry rather than spectacle. His remarks underscore a broader recalibration in Beijing and Chinese industry: a pivot from AI hype to measurable industrial value, coupled with cautious stewardship of more speculative fields like humanoid robotics.