(CIIE) China Focus: Exploring future at CIIE as global firms innovate with China. Xinhua 06 Nov 2026, 21:00 GMT+ SHANGHAI, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) - A room that adjusts its climate before one wakes, a taxi without a steering wheel, and a humanoid robot that plays table tennis are among the scenes of future life at the ninth China International Import Expo (CIIE), which opened here on Thursday. Many of these frontier and deep tech offerings displayed at China's flagship import platform are not simply sold, but also developed, tested and scaled up in China, as multinationals turn the rigors of the world's most competitive market into innovation partnerships. A DAY IN THE FUTURE At 7:30 a.m., before the curtains even open, the room is already perfectly conditioned, tuned by Bosch's AI-Hybrid smart home climate system built around user habits, which made its global debut at the CIIE. Step into a Tesla Cybercab for the commute, and the steering wheel and pedals are gone. The redesigned passenger-oriented cabin shifts focus from driving to taking in the view outside. In another vehicle, French firm Michelin's Touch Intelligence technology repurposes real-time data from existing sensors to assess tire conditions, without extra hardware. At the factory, the Honeywell Forge intelligent connectivity platform helps production move from automation toward autonomy. By connecting machines, sensors and control systems, the platform alerts operators to potential malfunctions and provides maintenance advice. Back in the office, Qualcomm's higher-speed, wider-bandwidth 6G terminal - whose prototype was first shown at the CIIE - enables AI-powered devices ranging from smart glasses to embodied robots to operate within a richer ecosystem. In the gym after work, a humanoid robot tracks a table tennis ball's trajectory, calculates its stroke strategy and strikes back in real time, with no remote control required. At a community pharmacy, shelves are stocked with new skincare and wellness products drawing on AI beauty devices, longevity science and hair-regrowth technologies developed by L'Oreal, Estee Lauder and Shiseido. Back home, Singaporean brand OSIM's AI-powered massage chair uses non-contact sensors to read a user's heart rate and stress levels and tailor a massage routine. Behind all these scenarios, AI computing runs at full tilt in data centers, supported by cooling solutions from U.S. materials science giant Dow, which is attending the CIIE for the ninth time. FROM TARGET MARKET TO INNOVATION PARTNER "When you invest in China, you are investing in the most competitive market in the world," said Pua Seck Guan, executive chairman and CEO of Singapore-based Perennial Holdings, a newcomer to the CIIE. The firm has set up China's first wholly foreign-owned tertiary general hospital in Tianjin, northern China. The hospital has treated patients from more than 40 countries and regions, and the company is pursuing healthcare investments in more Chinese cities. Experts noted that China is shifting competition away from a race to the bottom toward quality, technology and innovation - and foreign companies are among the beneficiaries. Michelin has found that trends in electric vehicles and autonomous driving often emerge in China ahead of other markets. "China is both a test ground and a gym for strengthening our innovation capabilities," said Jay Wu, a senior executive at Michelin China. "We are evolving from 'In China, for China' to 'With China, for the World' - that is, innovating with China and creating value for the world." Beyond products, the CIIE has also helped multinationals expand partnerships from product supply to joint research, technology validation and new industrial applications, Wu added. "Shanghai is a natural launchpad for our innovations," said Puay Koon Chia, Dow Asia Pacific president, noting Dow's materials science expertise can support digital transformation, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy and the transition to a circular, lower-carbon economy in China. The Shanghai Dow Center, the company's largest integrated R&D hub outside the United States, brings together more than 300 scientists and over 80 advanced labs. Healthcare giant Medtronic sees China as a global leader in digital health applications, said Cao Shan, vice president of corporate affairs and communications at Medtronic Greater China. "The country's innovation speed, complete supply chain and talent advantages are highly competitive worldwide, and that is why we are continuing to deepen our footprint here," Cao said.

Suzhou steps up opening-up drive. * by admin * November 5, 2026 The Conference on Invigorating the City through Opening-Up is held in Kunshan, Suzhou, on Nov 4. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] With a strong industrial foundation and well-established links to global markets, Suzhou is a major hub for manufacturing and foreign trade in East China's Jiangsu province. Building on these strengths, Suzhou is stepping up efforts to attract investment, expand trade and support businesses in exploring international opportunities. These efforts took center stage at the Conference on Invigorating the City through Opening-Up, held in Kunshan, a county-level city of Suzhou, on Nov 4. The event brought together more than 200 executives from Fortune Global 500 companies, central State-owned enterprises and leading industry players attending the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. At the conference, the city unveiled a package of "1+9" action plans to further advance opening-up, comprising an overarching development blueprint and nine initiatives across trade, investment and platform development. The measures aim to help businesses reduce costs, secure orders, explore markets and strengthen their competitiveness. The overarching blueprint, the Suzhou Development Plan for Open Economy during the 15th Five-Year Plan Period (2026-30), sets out 17 targets based on five priorities: building a leading trade city, strengthening Suzhou's role as a foreign investment hub, supporting enterprises' global expansion, upgrading opening-up platforms and improving the local business environment. In the first three quarters of 2026, Suzhou's GDP reached 2.12 trillion yuan ($317.8 billion), up 5.6 percent year-on-year, leading all cities in Jiangsu in both economic output and growth. Foreign trade totaled 3.07 trillion yuan, up 51.9 percent. By 2030, the city aims to increase its share of Jiangsu province's and China's total imports and exports. It also plans to maintain its leading position in Jiangsu in terms of utilized foreign capital and remain among the country's top cities in this regard. Moreover, Suzhou expects to have 270 provincial-level headquarters and functional institutions of foreign-invested companies, as well as 400 provincial-level foreign-invested research and development centers. The conference also heard from business leaders who shared their experiences of growing alongside Suzhou. Wang Laichun, chairman and general manager of Luxshare Precision Industry, a Fortune Global 500 company, viewed opening-up embedded as part of Suzhou's DNA. Its well-established industrial supply chains and market-oriented, law-based and international business environment provide companies with a stable and predictable foundation for long-term development. Since setting up operations in Kunshan in 2009, Luxshare has gradually expanded across Suzhou, establishing an industrial presence in Changshu, Wuzhong district and Xiangcheng district. Matias Campodonico, global vice-president of Dow, highlighted Suzhou's strong and highly coordinated industrial ecosystem, as well as its commitment to advanced manufacturing and technological innovation, and its close links with industries shaping the future of materials science. Dow has invested more than $3 billion cumulatively in its Zhangjiagang production base, making it one of the company's most important manufacturing hubs in the Asia-Pacific region. The Greater China market is Dow's second-largest globally and one of its most important strategic growth regions. As Suzhou looks ahead to the next five years, the "1+9" action plans signal its commitment to further strengthening its position in global trade and investment while creating more opportunities for businesses to grow and expand internationally. Tanks to chinadaily.com.cn Please visit: Its Sponsor

Vertiv combines liquid cooling for AI data centers with Dow and Solenis in a single ecosystem. Vertiv is introducing a worldwide ecosystem that enables data center operators to manage liquid-cooled infrastructure as one integrated thermal system. The offering combines an extensive collaboration with Dow, a specialist in materials science and advanced coolants, and a new collaboration with Solenis, a supplier of specialty chemicals and water treatment solutions. Vertiv thus brings together its infrastructure, monitoring and international service organization with expertise in fluid chemistry, coolants and water treatment. The reason is the power density that AI workloads cause in data centers. According to Vertiv, liquid cooling is therefore no longer a matter of individual components, but of the system as a whole. Reliability and performance depend on the complete thermal chain. It runs from heat removal and infrastructure for chilled water, through the cooling circuits on the facility and IT sides, to the distribution of coolant, fluid chemistry, filtration, leak detection, monitoring and control engineering. Vertiv is expanding its collaboration with Dow through the Dow Coolant Care Network. With Solenis, the company will now work together on integrated fluid management and services for thermal infrastructure. These services are combined with Vertiv's monitoring and lifecycle capabilities. In this way, customers can maintain coolant quality, address system problems and optimize liquid cooling performance throughout the entire lifecycle. The ecosystem starts with design. Cooling systems are optimized for ease of maintenance and operational efficiency, with compatibility between fluids, materials and infrastructure components as the starting point. After that, it is about keeping the cooling infrastructure clean and stable through controlled flushing, precise filling, careful commissioning and filtration. For monitoring the thermal system, Vertiv uses its monitoring and analytics platform Vertiv Next Predict, which provides integrated insight into the thermal infrastructure. Continuous monitoring and integrated leak detection should make problems visible early and enable a rapid operational response, which increases resilience. "AI makes liquid cooling no longer a matter of equipment choice, but a matter of integrated system management," says Ron Bednar, Senior Vice President Global and Americas Services at Vertiv. "Operators must manage thermal infrastructure, fluid condition, monitoring and lifecycle services as one coherent discipline. We are convinced that jointly managing these interdependencies and the fluid chemistry helps operators improve system efficiency and uptime, limit risks and extend equipment lifespan." About Wouter Hoeffnagel. Wouter Hoeffnagel is Manager Online Content at Dutch IT Media He is an expert in the field of ICT and has been writing about it for years in the form of news reports and insightful articles.