Enterprises play key role in innovation

As the integration of technological and industrial innovation is becoming central to China's next stage of artificial intelligence development, enterprises are expected to play an even more essential role in driving breakthroughs, said industry experts and company executives during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2026 in Hainan province.

The comments came as China recently said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), it will promote the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation by increasing the supply of high-quality science and technology, strengthening the role of enterprises as the main drivers of innovation, and accelerating the transformation and application of scientific findings.

"The fact that industrial innovation has been highlighted separately this time is meant to underscore the importance of industries and enterprises," said Jiang Xiaojuan, former deputy secretary-general of the State Council, at a BFA sideline on Wednesday.

Jiang said that innovation, in the digital era, increasingly relies on algorithms, data, platforms and large-scale resource aggregation, which drives innovation to shift toward industries and enterprises.

"Industries and enterprises are no longer only involved in the final stage of commercialization, but have also become major players in early-stage discovery and mid-stage research and development."

Against this backdrop, AI applications — particularly AI agents — are emerging as a key driver of industrial transformation, said Zhang Yaqin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and dean of the Institute for AI Industry Research at Tsinghua University.

Zhang said that moving from "AI" to "AI+" calls for not only technological progress but also a new way of thinking.

"Companies of all sizes need to adopt AI-driven thinking in management, which will require fundamental changes in underlying concepts," Zhang said.

Driven by AI agent-based applications, in the consuming end, smartphones are expected to evolve into intelligent digital hubs, according to Zhang Fei, vice-president of AI business at Vivo.

Interactions with agent-based smartphones will become more natural and human-like, Zhang from Vivo said. "It's about the phone adapting to people, rather than people adapting to the phone".

"With reasoning capabilities, they will be able to complete complex tasks across different scenarios and applications," he added.