[Photo via Beijing Daily App]

The HICOOL 2026 Global Entrepreneur Summit opened at the China International Exhibition Center (Shunyi Hall) in Beijing on the evening of August 26. With its duration extended to four days for the first time, this year's summit, themed "From Innovation Breakthroughs to Industry Benchmarks", is expected to see over 50,000 visits by innovators from around the world.

The opening ceremony featured four major highlights: the release of the 2026 Global Entrepreneur Insights Report, the establishment of the Global Entrepreneurship Service Alliance along with the launch of the Global OPC Support Plan, the initiation of preparations for the "Virtualized, Verifiable, Integrated Twin Architecture for Life" program, and the pre-launch of an academy for robots' autonomous evolution.

In addition, 200 cutting-edge projects received awards at the award ceremony of the HICOOL Global Entrepreneurship Competition. This year, the competition saw record highs in participation numbers, attracting 10,209 startup projects and 13,472 entrepreneurs from across the globe — indicating growth for the seventh consecutive year.

This year's summit maintains its usual format of integrating an exhibition and meetings. Four major forums are scheduled, themed respectively on "Sources of Innovation", "Technology Inflection Points", "AI Implementation", and "Breakthroughs to Going Global", covering the full spectrum of entrepreneurial development. The 23,000-square-meter exhibition space features five major zones, bringing together over 600 exhibitors, more than 300 startup projects, and over 300 investment institutions. For the first time, the summit has also set up an International Job Fair, inviting 32 well-known companies to recruit on-site, alongside the showcase of AI hardware, and special events for the embodied AI community.

(Source: People's Daily)