[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. Themed "From Innovation Breakthroughs to Industry Benchmarks", this year’s summit will run for four days for the first time and is expected to see over 50,000 attendants from innovation ecosystems worldwide.

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 (VITAL) program, and the pre-launch of an academy for autonomous robot evolution.

At the HICOOL Global Entrepreneurship Competition award ceremony, 200 cutting-edge projects received awards. This year, the competition attracted 10,209 startup projects and 13,472 entrepreneurs from across the globe, setting a new record for registrations and marking the seventh consecutive year of growth.

This year's summit continues its integrated exhibition-and-conference model. Four major forums are scheduled, themed "Sources of Innovation", "Technology Inflection Points", "AI Implementation", and "Breakthroughs to Going Global", respectively, 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. Other activities include a showcase of AI hardware and special events for the embodied AI community.

(Source: People's Daily)